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DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
DURHAM, N. C. 


eee at 


e ¢ >» 


PROCEEDINGS 


OF THE 


Nineteenth Annual Session 


OF THE 


State Literary and Historical Association 
of North Carolina 


RALEIGH 
NOVEMBER 20-21, 1919 


Compiled by 
R. D. W. CONNOR 
Secretary 


RALEIGH 
Epwagps & BrouGHTON PRINTING Co. 
Stare PRINTERS 
1920 


The North Carolina Historical Commission 


J. Bryan Geimes, Chairman, Raleigh. 
D. H. Hi1, Raleigh. T. M. Prrrman, Henderson. 
M. C. S. Noste, Chapel Hili. FRANK Woop, Edenton. 


R. D. W. Connor, Secretary, Raleigh. 


4 Se eee 
fj? -C 32 


Cc, ] 
Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association 
of North Carolina 
1918-1919 
President ....... satinvadieley aie all elayetels .eeee-JAMES SPRUNT, Wilmington. 
First Vice-President............ .+eee-Miss Magy O, Gganam, Raleigh. 


Second Vice-President........:2+::+..C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 
Third Vice-President........2+++++.+eMISs CARRIE JACKSON, Pittsboro. 
Secretary-Treasurer ......+seeeeeeee+ D. W. Connor, Raleigh. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
(With Above Officers) 


Epwin Ggeentaw, Chapel Hill. A. L, Brooxs, Greensboro. 
Miss Jut1a ALEXANDER, Charlotte. JosEPH B, CHESHIRE, Raleigh, 
Miss ADELAIDE Fries, Winston-Salem. 


1919-1920 


President ......ccecessecesssesseseeed+ G@ DER. HAMILTON, Chapel Hill. 
First Vice-President..................Mgs. 8. WesTBAY BaTTLs, Asheville, 
Second Vice-President................1. T. Hicks, Henderson. 

Third Vice-President............+....MgEs. M. K, Myers, Washington. 
Secretary-Treasurer ......e+eeee20+2+h. D. W. Connog, Raleigh, 


EXEcUTIvVE CoMMITTEE 
(With Above Officers) 


W. K. Boyp, Durham. W. C. Smits, Greensboro. 
Mags. H. G. Cooper, Oxford. F. B. McDowe tt, Charlotte. 
MarsHatt DELANcey Harwoop, Raleigh. 


PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL 
ASSOCIATION 


“The collection, preservation, production and dissemination of State litera- 
ture and history; : 

“The encouragement of public and school libraries; 

“The establishment of an historical museum; 

“The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people; 

“The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina; 
and— 

“The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising 
generations.” 


ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES 


All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of 
the Association. There are two classes of members: “Regular Members,” 
paying one dollar a year, and “Sustaining Members,” paying five dollars a 
year. 


RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 
(Organized October, 1900) 


Fiscal Paid up 
Years. Presidents. Secretaries. Membership. 
1900-1902)" Warmer, Orark..........50556 Arex J. FED 2... eee 150 
1901-1902 Henry G..Connor............/ Arex J. FELD. {eee 139 
TOO2-T908 Wierda: POUEA TS. cies ss.cie oleae ne GrorGce SS. FRAPS.j3e eee 73 
1903-1904 C. AtPHONSO SMITH.......... CLARENCE POE. >... eee 127 
1904-1905 Ropert W. WINSTON.......... CLARENCE POE.....206 intel els) 
1905-1906 CHaREEsS B. AYCOCK........., CLARENCE POE. <2. 2 see 185 
LSG6-19 O7ianWs, ee RUDENCS Oe oa nee aie CLARENCE POE: =). 2 -eeeee 301 
1907-1908 RopertT BINGHAM............. (CLARENCE POE!. 2.4.5 -nete 273 
1908-1909 ) Jontus Davis?..c.che ee ee eee CLARENCE POE... .06sn eee 311 
1909-1910) VPrArT) Ny. WALKER jo). J. scene CLARENCE POE... eee 440 
1910-1911 Epwarp K. GRAHAM.......... CLARENCE POE... . ce peeee 425 
POMS Riv D> Wa CONNOBstsir. oo oe CLARENCE POE... -. eee 479 
NO OTS aiNV hes ATE Wists cle eiasac eine ree ae R. D. W.. CoNNGE AE eeeee 476 
1913-1914 ARcHIBALD HENDERSON........ R. D. W. CONNOR eee 435 
LOtA-19 0 Cranmer (Poms) sos. aci.leceeics R. D. W. Connor saeeueee 412 
1915-1916 Howarp E. RonDTHALER....... R. D. W. Connon eeeee 501 
HO PGSUSET GAY TGONDON: is )s!s aeoh o cls'odvents R. D. W. CoNNOR........ 521 
1917-1918 James (SPRUNT..........,.... R. D., W. ConNoR. aoeeee 453 
1918-1919 JAMES SPRUNT............... R. D. W. CoNNOR...20- = Seman 
1919-1920 J. G. p—ER. Hamitton......... R.. D. W. Connor: s.2eeee 493 


THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 
Conditions of Award Officially Set Forth by Mrs. Patterson. 


To the President and Hauecutive Committee of the Literary and Historical 
Association of North Carolina: 


As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among 
the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State 
an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your society a 
loving cup upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with 
your approval, and will be found to be just and practicable: 


1. The cup will be known as the “William Houston Patterson Memorial 
Cup.” 

2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your association for ten 
successive years, beginning with October, 1905. 


3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve 
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the 
year of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard 
to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. 
The work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manu- 
seript nor any unpublished writings will be considered. 


4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup, 
with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 
1st of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the 
Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual 
meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one 
winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it 
three times. Should no one at the expiration of that period, have won it so 
often, the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names 
of only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award 
shall be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup. 


5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and 
Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and 
of the occupants of the Chairs of English Literature at the University of 
North Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Farest College, and at the 
State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the 
Chairs of History at the University of North Carolina and at Trinity College. 

6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their 
successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the Board, and 
these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for shorter time, 
as the Board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to 
act must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to 
serve, so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each 
year. 

7. The publication of a member of the Board will be considered and 
passed upon in the same manner as that of any other writer. 

Mrs. J. Linpsay PATTERSON. 


SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION 


According to a resolution adopted at the 1908 session of the Literary and 
Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have 
his work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communi- 
cate with any member of the committee, either personally or through a 
representative. Books or other publications to be considered, together with 
any communications regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the 
Association and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for 
consideration. 


AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 

1905—JoHN CHARLES MoNEILL, for poems later reprinted in book form as 
“Songs, Merry and Sad.” 

1906—Hpwin Mims, for “Life of Sidney Lanier.” 

1907—Kremp PLUMMER BATTLE, for “History of the University of North Caro- 
lina,” 

1908—Samuet A’Court Asue, for “History of North Carolina, Vol, I.” 

19098—CLARENCE Por, for “A Southerner in Durope.” 

1910—R. D. W. Connor, for “Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Carolina 
History.” 

1911—ArRcHIBALD HeEeNpERsoN, for “George Bernard Shaw: His Life and 
Works.” 

1912—CLarENcE Pox, for “Where Half the World is Waking Up.” 

1918—Horace KepHart, for “Our Southern Highlanders.” 

1914—J. G. p—ER. Hamitton, for “Reconstruction in North Carolina.” 

1915—Wit11am Louis Porpat, for “The New Peace.” 

1916—No Award. 

1917—Mrs. Oxive Tizrorp Darcan, for “The Cycle’s Rim.” 

1918—No Award. 

1919—No Award. 


WHAT THD ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE— 
SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT. 


1, Rural libraries, 

2. “North Carolina Day” in the schools. 

8. The North Carolina Historical Commission. 

4, Vance statue in Statuary Hall. 

5. Fire-proof State Library Building and Hall of Records. 

6. Civil War Battlefields marked to show North Carolina’s record. 

7. North Carolina’s war record defended and war claims vindicated. 
8. Patterson Memorial Cup. 


Contents 


PAGE 
Minutes of the Nineteenth Annual Session..............cccececccecees 9 
Restoration of Jerusalem: President’s Annual Address. By James 
BSMPSISBRIUES otter go) asc sey ay cher eval cre toh | SNe aoe ae esas ce oA SN os ae nee Fa ae 11 
The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line at the St. Quentin Canal. By 
Brigadier-General U4: Dy TySOWse. .eccicle codes sic cesses ovoncsc cess 43 
A North Carolinian at the Court of St. James During the World War. 
ES SMEMILERIS ONY of MCIUGANR 5.) c <a! ofatate larataleaee acai thas fal ele crsietobiyei ie, era anaes 61 
Contributions of North Carolina Women to the World War. By Archi- 
IetIRRMBELO TPMT SONI) aac) 2s: «= 6) syaiai eke Par cce Maid oIe ei biel ae hae s EE ee lading ee 85 


Some Economic Effects of the World War. By William H. Glasson.... 96 
The Preservation of North Carolina World War Records. By Robert 


EMME ETORELSCeay Mer avec areyey ar cia, 2 cicycvcVehe Stale, clicbey ¢ <ey co @ ahalergiainys Siviele « GU area eae dwells paren’ 105 
North Carolina Bibliography, 1917-1919. By Mary B. Palmer........... 109 
William Joseph Peele: Philosopher. By Robert W. Winston.......... 113 
Edward Kidder Graham: Teacher and Interpreter of Modern Citizen- 
RAO RE ED Va UOUI SS: 4E Ca UW RLSOMB ss 1aicfo crate as viel eciahere leo doare Siviciciole e's ce eee 119 
Kemp Plummer Battle: His Contribution to North Carolina History. 
ERUMAVM DURE TNIM IC, ISS TAT GEDA) ale fs ert syaieysa'y sie aisls Gro ea faiele el aies Ge, Sudva.o vive ata 8 126 


Member 1918-1919..... Ode AgHOCURC Ont oUUdELE GcodeondBtoaoelcopepoee 131 


en RE 


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Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary 
and Historical Association of 
North Carolina 


Minutes of the Nineteenth Annual Session 
Raleigh, November 20-21, 1919 


THURSDAY EVENING, Novemser 20TH. 


The nineteenth annual session of the State Literary and Historical 
Association of North Carolina was called to order in the auditorium 
cf the Woman’s Club, Raleigh, N. C., Thursday evening, November 
20, 1919, at 8:30 o’clock, President James Sprunt in the chair. The 
session was opened with an invocation by Rev. W. McC. White, Pastor 
of the First Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, N. C. Dr. Sprunt then 
read the president’s annual address on “The Restoration of J erusalem.” 
Mr. A. W. McLean being ill at his home in Washington, D. C., his 
paper on “A North Carolinian at the Court of St. James during the 
World War” was read by Mr. J. Crawford Biggs. 

At the conclusion of Mr. McLean’s paper an informal reception was 
held for the members of the State Literary and Historical Association, 
the North Carolina Folk Lore Society, and the North Carolina Library 
Association, in the Weoman’s Club building. 


FRIDAY MORNING, Novemser 21st. 


The session was called to order in the hall of the State Senate by 
President Sprunt, at 11 o’clock. The president presented Dr. Archi- 
bald Henderson, of the University of North Carolina, who read a 
paper on “The Contributions of North Carclina Women to the World 
War.” Dr. Henderson was followed by Dr. William H. Glasson, of 
Trinity College, who presented a paper on “Some Economie Effects of 
the World War.” Following Dr. Glasson, Mr. Robert B. House, Col- 
lector of North Carolina World War Records for the North Carolina 
Historical Commission, discussed “The Preservation of North Caro- 
lina’s World War Records.” In the absence of Miss Mary B. Palmer, 
who was unavoidably prevented from attending, it was moved and 
carried that the reading of her paper on “North Carolina Bibliography, 
1917-1919,” be dispensed with and that the paper be printed in the 
proceedings. 


10 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


The president announced that during the past year the Association 
had lost three of its most active members by death, and that the rest 
of the program for the morning session would be in the nature of a 
memorial service to them. He presented Hon. R. W. Winston who 
read a paper entitled “William Joseph Peele: Philosopher.” Judge 
Winston was followed by Dr. Louis R. Wilson, of the University of 
North Carolina, who presented a paper on “Edward Kidder Graham: 
Teacher and Interpreter of Modern Citizenship.” Mr. William C. 
Smith, of the North Carolina College for Women, presented a paper 
on “Kemp Plummer Battle: His Contribution to North Carolina 
History.” 

At the conclusion cf the exercises the president announced the fol- 
lowing nominating committee, with instructions to nominate officers 
for the coming year, and to report at the evening session: Messrs. R. W. 
Winston, L. R. Wilson, and Bennehan Cameron. 


FRIDAY EVENING, Novemser 21sr. 


President Sprunt having been unavoidably called home, the session 
was called to order by Vice-President Mary O. Graham, in the audi- 
torium of Meredith College, at 8 o’clock. Miss Graham presented Dr. 
W. K. Boyd who introduced to the audience Prof. William A. Dun- 
ning, of Columbia University, who addressed the Association on “The 
Rise of Nationalism.” Following Dr. Dunning’s address Col. Albert 
L. Cox, formerly of the 113th Field Artillery, 30th Division, A. E. F., 
presented Brigadier-General L. 'D. Tyson, of the 30th Division, A. E. F., 
who read a paper entitled “The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line at 
the St. Quentin Canal.” 

At the conclusion of General Tyson’s paper the Nominating Com- 
mittee reported the following nominations, which were unanimously 
approved: President, J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill; First Vice- 
President, Mrs. S. Westray Battle, Asheville; Second Vice-President, 
T. T. Hicks, Henderson; Third Vice-President, Mrs. M. K. Myers, 
Washington, N. C.; Secretary-Treasurer, R. D. W. Connor. 

The Association then adjourned sine die. 


ADDRESSES 


The Restoration of Jerusalem 
President, State Literary and Historical Association 
By JAMES SPRUNT < 

When we consider the history of the Jewish people, we recognize 
our own history; we regard it with the same reverence; we feel in 
it the same authority; we contemplate in it the same lessons. Their 
national history crowded into about 1,200 years was, in miniature, the 
history of the nations of the world. It was at once a prediction, a 
warning, a lesson, a type, and offered a point of departure to all the 
peoples of the world. Like the refrain to a great epic we read, and 
the Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and He deliv- 
ered them into the hands of their enemies, and then after a season, 
the Children of Israel cried unto the Lord in their captivity, and He 
raised up such and such an one, and delivered them from the hands 
of their oppressors. 

The chaos that threatens our very existence to-day, as seen in the 
light of the past, is scarcely more than an incident in reconstruction. 
Over and over again the old order has died in excesses of bloodshed 
to give place to the new, and invariably, every man’s hand has been 
against every man. Travailings and groanings of creation precede the 
birth of every new era. We have far to go before we approach even 
remotely the disastrous disintegration of the life of Europe that fol- 
lowed the violent overthrow of feudalism. Atkins says “the fourteenth 
century was one of the troubled centuries of history. Every state in 
Europe was a welter of anarchy; the old mediaeval order was break- 
ing up in unspeakable confusion. The breaking of the ice-pack in 
northern seas, with the spring tides beneath and the new risen sun 
above, is tranquillity itself compared with the confusion of that time. 
It was indeed a prophetic confusion, a travail rather than a catastro- 
phe. A new world was in the way of being born, but the pain of its 
birth was beyond expression.”4 To come down to our own continent 
and our own times, Judge Connor, whose valuable contributions to 
our State literature always illuminate the higher plane of civic right- 
eousness, in his admirable address to the Federal Grand Jury on the 
11th of November, reminds us of the apprehension of our own George 
Washington as the Republic struggled into life——that the nation was 
marked with anarchistic tendencies. There has never been a great 
victory that the victors themselves have not been in a sense, the vic- 
tims. It has been said that the real German national defeat came in 
their victory over France in 1870, and surely America, after partici- 
pating in one of the decisive phases of the late war, has won laurels 


1Pilgrims of the Lonely Road. 


12 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


that have seemed to turn in her hand into poisoned herbs. For in 
the pride of life and the exultation of power, we have cried out, “our 
own hand hath gotten us the victory,” and He Who delivered the 
Children of Israel into the hands of their enemies, hath delivered us 
unto the evil counsels of alien forces, and by them will we be bound 
until we recognize the might of Jehovah and return to Him in national 
repentance, to perform the duties enjoined by the prophet Micah of 
old, “to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
God.” These were the principles that made America great, and they 
are the only platform upon which kingdom or republie can build with 
an everlasting foundation. And as this is true of the Gentile nations, 
how much more emphatic is it in connection with the destiny of the 
Jews which is not controlled by any people nor by any nation; for 
it is being worked out through a thousand unconscious agencies, to 
accomplish the purpose which the Almighty announced in the begin- 
ning; for He Who is our God, is, in a peculiar sense, their God; 
we, who belong to the great empire of God, know that He was first 
their King, and that they lived under Him in a theocracy which shall 
yet be established cover all flesh, for when the Son of God shall have 
put all things under His feet, then will He deliver His kingdom to 
His Father, “that God may be all and in all.” 

Our theme then, is of paramount importance among the events that 
stand out conspicuously after the smoke cf battle has cleared. All 
else fades away in ordered course to the oblivion whence it came, but 
the Jewish Race is advancing on its pilgrim march from stage to 
stage, to its final consummation. Other nations rise, reach the pin- 
nacle of greatness, fall and disappear forever; others reach a degree 
cf power and influence, and then decline to a mediocrity that has no 
renaissance, but the Jews have builded kingdoms, have risen to great- 
ness, have fallen to ruin, and builded again upon their dead past to 
come forth again a nation, and have repeated these processes with a 
pertinacity that gives us in them a picture of the human being in 
large, because this race is imperishable and is typical of the life of 
man, and as men look for immortality so, too, shall the Jewish nation 
be established forever, for the mouth of our God hath spoken it. 


“Their organic law containing the elements of their polity, though given 
by God Himself, was yet required to be solemnly ratified by the whole 
people. This was done on Ebal and Gerizim, and is, perhaps, the first, 
as it is certainly the grandest constitutional convention, ever held among 
men. On these two lofty mountains separated by a deep and narrow ravine, 
all Israel, comprising three millions of souls were assembled; elders, 
prophets, priests, women and children and 600,000 warriors led by the spears 
of Judah, and supported by the archers of Benjamin. In this mighty pres- 


Srate Lirrrary anp Histroricat Association 13 


ence surrounded by the sublime accessions to its grandeur, the law was read 
by the Levites, line by line, item by item, whilst the tribes on either height 
signified their acceptance thereof by responsive anthems, which pierced the 
heavens. Of all the great principles established for the happiness and good 
government of our race, though hallowed by the blood of the bravest and 
the best, and approved by centuries of trial, no one had a grander origin, 
nor more glorious exemplification than this one, that all governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

“Throughout the whole system of the Jewish government there ran a 
broad, genuine and refreshing stream of democracy such as the world then 
knew little of, and has since but little improved.’2 


From the beginning, this favored nation was taken under the pro- 
tection of the Almighty Himself, and they were to become a model 
people, and an example to the nations of the earth, as well as to show 
forth the glory of the true God. 

Says Atkins in his delightful book “Jerusalem Past and Present”: 


“Thirteen hundred years before Christ (we cannot be too sure about 
dates) wandering Jewish tribes who had been long in the bitter country 
to the south of Palestine, succeeded in crossing the Jordan, and fought their 
way towards the uplands of Judea. 

“They came under a great sense of Divine leadership, conscious of a 
mission and different from all their neighbors in the pure austerity of their 
religious faith. They did battle with the Canaanites for possession of the 
land, defeating among others, the league cf the five kings of Gibeon about 
three miles northwest of Jerusalem, and established themselves gradually 
in the strongholds, coming through the very price they had to pay for it, 
to have such an affection for it as scarce any people has had for any land 
before or since. They were not able at once to conquer Jerusalem owing 
to the strength of its natural position. It is really a kind of citadel built 
by nature upon two rocks separated in olden times by a rather deep ravine. 
One of these is higher than the other and both fall away so sheerly on 
three sides, as only to be taken with the instruments of ancient warfare 
when approached from the north and not at all easily even then. More 
than that, even though the lower rock were captured, there still remained 
above it the higher level space which had been from of old the seat of the 
citadel and the place. 

“During the confused times of the Book of the Judges while Israel was 
gaining a measure of national unity and was gradually becoming trans- 
formed from a nomadic to a field-tilling people, we catch from time to time 
glimpses of Jerusalem as one sees a mountain summit through the changing 
clouds. For nearly three hundred years the city was regarded by the Israel- 
ites as ‘the city of the stranger’ where it was neither desirable nor safe for 
an Israelite to tarry, but as we look back over 3,000 years, we see Jerusalem, 
rising from its gray rocks as though a part of the rock itself, has been 
built and rebuilt and maintained by three great forces; a strong strategic 


?Vance: The Scattered Nation. 


14 NineteentH Annvuat SzEssion 


position, the passionate loyalty of the pecullar people whose capital city it 
became, and the faith and reverence of all the deciples of Jesus Christ.”8 

“Palestine is a limestone shoulder of western Asia thrust 2,000 feet above 
the level of the sea; on the north it is shut in by the high ranges of 
Lebanon and anti-Lebanon and by the chasm of the Litany. On the south, 
it is no less enclosed by the arid and inhospitable deserts of the upper part 
of the Peninsula of Sinai. On the shore of the Mediterranean, it stands as 
if it had advanced as far as possible towards the west, separated therefrom 
by that which, when the time arrived, proved to be no barrier but the 
readiest medium of communication,—the wide waters of the Great Sea. 
Thus it was open to all the gradual influences of the rising communities 
of the West, while it was saved from retrogression and descrepitude which 
have ultimately been the doom of all purely Hastern States, whose con- 
nections were limited to the East only. There was, however, one channel 
and but one, by which it could reach and be reached by the great Oriental 
empires. The only road by which the great rivals of the ancient world 
could approach one another,—by which alone Egypt could get to Assyria, 
and Assyria to Egypt—lay along the broad flat strip of coast which formed 
the maritime portion of the Holy Land and thence by the Plain of Lebanon 
to the Euphrates. It was a convenient arena on which in successive ages 
the hostile powers which contended for the empire of the Hast fought their 
battles. It is essentially a mountainous country. The mass of hills which 
occupies the center of the country is bordered or framed on both sides, 
east and west by a broad belt of lowland, sunk below its level. The slopes 
or cliffs which form as it were, the retaining walls of the depression, are 
furrowed and cleft by the torrent beds which discharge the waters of the 
hills and form the means of communication between the upper and the 
lower level. On the west, this lowland interposes between the mountains 
and the sea, and is the Plain of Philistia and of Sharon. On the east, it 
is the broad bottom of the Jordan Valley deep down in which rushes the 
one river of Palestine to its grave in the Dead Sea. 

“Few things are a more constant source of surprise to the stranger in 
Palestine, than the manner in which the hill-tops are, throughout, selected 
for habitation. A town in a valley is a rare exception. Scarce a single 
eminence of the multitude always in sight but 1s crowned with its city or 
village, inhabited or in ruins, often so placed as if not accessibility, but 
inaccessibility had been the object of its builders. And indeed, such was 
their object. These groups of naked, forlorn structures, piled irregularly 
one above another, on the curve of the hill-top, are the lineal descendants, 
if indeed they do not sometimes contain the actual remains of the ‘fenced 
cities, great and walled up to heaven, which are frequently mentioned in 
the records of the Israelite Conquest.”4 

“Beneath the stretches of the hill and valley there is a great depth of 
limestone rock of varying degrees of hardness much worn and weathered, 
and because of its uneven power of resistance, broken and always changing 
surfaces. Above it all is the light drenched blue of the Syrian sky, and 
beyond that, all that which the vision of the prophet could discern as to 


2 Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 
_ *8mith’s Bible Dictionary. 


Sratrm Literary AND HistoricaL AssocraATION 15 


the meanings of unseen and eternal things. This limestone shoulder by 
one of those coincidences which make history, lies in the path of com- 
peting empires hard by the cross roads where the races meet.”6 


Such was the land where was unfolded the history of a people who 
not once or twice, but always, neglected its supreme opportunity. We 
see them refusing to go into the land that had been promised them 
because they were afraid they could not take it by arms, and that 
whole generation of cowards actually died and left their bones in the 
wilderness before the nation had acquired the necessary forces to 
undertake a military venture, and meantime, they were being trained 
in the desert to acquire citizenship, and were changd gradually from 
a nation of slaves to a nation of property owners. We see them 
fighting for the land promised them, often being assisted by their 
God Who took up arms with them and miraculously overcame their 
foes, and we listen spell-bound to the story of the overthrow of the 
walls of the stronghold Jericho, which fell at the sound of the trum- 
pets, in order to show the might of the King under Whose banner 
they served. Time after time they are given a demonstration of the 
power of their God and His superiority over the heathen: the day 
of miracles came twice to the Jews, first to teach them the might of 
Jehovah, and second to teach them the divinity of Jesus Christ. They 
were as difficult to impress the second time as they were the first 
time. Their whole history is one long recital of a stubborn, obstinate 
people who could be trained only after they were completely broken. 

We owe much to the Jew, for the very traits that were his undoing 
were avenues through which the soul of man is being taught to-day. 
How much would our literature be impoverished if there were no 
Psalter, and yet how could there have been such a collection of heart 
hymns if David had not gone down into the depths of sin as well as 
have mounted to the heights of deeply spiritual experience. Their 
sweet Psalmist is not only a man after God’s own heart, but a man 
who has a word for every man’s mood of joy and of sorrow. 

David’s son Solomon, the third king of the Jews, brought the nation 
to the height of its splendor, glory and achievement,—thus, almost as 
soon as it began to be a kingdom, it began to wane. Like the Oriental 
woman and the far eastern rose, it burst into sudden and magnificent 
maturity, to decline quickly, and fade away. 

Solomon has the distinction of being the pride of three great reli- 
gions of the human family; the most resplendent of all the Jewish 
kings, the sage of the Mahometans, and the historical crest of the 


5 Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 


16 Nuveteento Annvuat SEssion 


history of the Jews from Christian point of view. Around him center 
ritualistic formulas which inspire masonic societies, fantasies of all 
kinds, and to him is attributed a power that can read the secrets of 
the heart, understand the language of bird and beast, and an authority 
that can exorcise the genii of the ring and lamp. 

Solomon’s earthly kingdom was about the size of Wales, but his 
mental kingdom, the whole of Christendom and the entire Moslem 
world as well as the Hebrew peoples of all lands and times. He built 
a temple to Jehovah which cost something like 85 billion dollars, 2. e., 
three times the proposed amount of Germany’s indemnity to the Allies. 
One single item in it was 10,000 candlesticks. 

His bodyguard composed of three score valiant men, were the tallest 
and handsomest of the sons of Israel. In the midst of Jerusalem 
there were 40,000 stalls for horses for his chariots, 12,000 horsemen 
manned these equipages. His own palace which was twenty years 
building, was so magnificent that it was talked of wherever Jewish 
trading vessels went,—far out to Spain on the one hand, and to India 
on the other. His wisdom was as often invoked as his splendor, the 
Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon, and 1,000 years later the Lord Jesus Christ 
alluded to his glory. The Queen of Sheba’s heart melted within her 
as well it might at the sight of the most magnificent avenue which was 
at the southwestern angle of the Temple. It would indeed be difficult 
to exaggerate the splendor of this approach. A colossal bridge on 
arches spanned the intervening Valley of the Tyropoeon, connecting 
the ancient City of David with what is called the “Royal Porch of 
the Temple.” From its ruins we can reconstruct this bridge. Hach 
arch spanned 4114 feet, and the spring-stones measured 24 feet im 
length by 6 in thickness. It is almost impossible to realize these pro- 
portions except by a comparison with other buildings. A single stone 
24 feet long! Yet these were by no means the largest in the masonry 
of the Temple. “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, 
is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the Great King. 

Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towers 
thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces.” Such 
was the splendor of the city in the days of the native monarchy, but 
what would the Queen of the East have said if she had been one of 
the pilgrims in that great yearly company that came up to the feasts 
in the time of Christ? For Herod had made Jerusalem a city of 
palaces and royally enthroned on commanding heights. 

“Terrace above terrace its courts rose, till high above the city, within 
the enclosure of marble cloisters, cedar-roofed and richly ornamented, 


Sratr Lirerary AND HistoricaL AssocIATION if 


Herod’s Temple stood out, a mass of marble and gold, glittering in the 
sunlight against the half encircling green background of Olivet. In 
all his wanderings the Jew has not seen a city like his own Jerusalem. 
Although the city was only four miles in circumference and its normal 
population 600,000, on festal occasions from two to three million souls 
congregated in and around it. For its size an incredibly large area 
was taken up with the Temple, the plateau of which was artificially 
leveled at immense labor and cost, and enlarged by gigantic sub- 
structures. In extent it was more than half greater than St. Peter’s 
at Rome and nearly double St. Paul’s in London. The Royal Porch 
which incorporated the palace site of King Solomon was built on an 
eminence as high as a tall steeple, and longer and higher than the 
York Cathedral. This detail of the Temple was called the “Porch 
of the Gentiles.” The Eastern Gate which was the main entrance of 
the Temple was made of dazzling Corinthian brass most richly orna-~ 
mented; and so massive with its double doors that it needed the united 
strength of twenty men to open and close them. 

Between the altar and the Porch of the Temple was the immense 
laver of brass supported by the twelve colossal lions which was drained 
every evening and filled every morning by machinery and where twelve 
priests could wash at the same time. The low-level aqueduct which 
supplied the Temple, derived its waters from three sources,—from the 
hills about Hebron, from Etham, and from the three Pools of Solomon. 
Its total length was over forty miles. The amount of water it con- 
veyed may be gathered by the fact that the surplusage of the waters 
of Etham is calculated when drained into the lower pool of Gihon, to 
have presented when full an “area of nearly four acres of water.’ 

Josephus says that the solid marble blocks used in the Temple were 
671% by 9 feet. These were the stones of which Christ predicted, “not 
one shall be left upon another.” 

Such was Jerusalem in its magnificence. 


“But we cannot understand it unless we understand the prophets, nor 
understand the prophets unless we understand Jerusalem. The endeavor 
of the prophet to interpret a weltering world in terms of Divine sover- 
eignty, carried the Hebrew prophet to his last lonely summit of vision. He 
stood at the listening outposts of the battle lines of the ancient world, inter- 
preted the ebb and fiow of tides of conquest in terms of the mercy or wrath 
of God, and heard the voice of God above the roar of every storm, as he 
heard the voice of God in the quiet places of his own soul. As we strive 
to find God in the flow of history, to discover His judgments in the rise 
and fall of people and to discern moral meanings in the shock of embattled 
nations, we are only doing for our own time, what the prophet did for his. 

“Through the centuries, the office of the priesthood was magnified, and 
the Temple worship enriched. We cannot easily over-estimate the degree 


6 Edersheim: The Temple. 
2 


18 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION 


in which the Temple cult with its festivals to which all the people came, 
unified and even spiritualized the religious life of the people; but the glory 
of Israel was not in its priests or its temple courts clouded with the smoke 
of sacrifices; the glory of Jerusalem before it fell before the Chaldean, is the 
glory of the prophets; strange and lonely men, not always highly consid- 
ered, who brought the life of the palace, the temple, and the market place up 
to the judgment seat of a just and sovereign God; men for whom king and 
high priest and trader were but instruments in the hands of the Most High; 
men who had no fear of authority if it were unjust, and who breathed a 
saving compassion for poverty and suffering wherever they saw it; men 
who stood for justice, righteousness and spiritual worship, and whose voices 
still sound across the years. If Jerusalem had done nothing else than to 
offer an occasion to the prophets and furnish a deathless illustration of 
the providence of God as made manifest through the mutations of history, 
we should ever after be in debt to that city.’’7 


All down the ages the prophets continued their warning ery not 
unlike that of Moses in the beginning,—rather gaining in intensity, 
and abounding in detail. 


“J will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after 
you; and your land shall be left desolate, and your cities waste. And upon 
them that are left of you I will send a faintness into their hearts, in the 
land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; 
and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none 
pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And 
ye shail perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat 
you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity 
in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of your fathers, shall 
they pine away with them. And yet, for all that, when they be in the land 
of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to 
destroy them utterly.’8 

“The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and with- 
out a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an 
ephod, and without a teraphim. Afterward shall the children of Israel re- 
turn and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the 
Lord and His goodness in the latter days.’9 


These prophecies project like a shadow across the lives of the Israel- 
ites after their capture by Nebuchadnezzar. What was their later his- 
tory? Were the prophets justified in making such threats? Did the 
Jews heed the warnings? 

During the long Babylonian captivity which came upon them after 
centuries of infidelity and idolatry, they experienced the same emotions 
that throbbed through the consciousness of the prodigal son, and gradu- 
ally came to themselves, learned to worship Jehovah with a spiritual 
7 Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 


8 Lev. 26: 33, 36, 44. 
® Hos. Bt) 4,) (5. 


Srate Literary anp HistoricaL AssocraTIon 19 


‘turning to Him, and forever abandoned the idols which had brought 
about their downfall, but strange to say, the reaction from idolatry 
led them into gross sins,—sins similar to those which mar the Church 
of God to-day. But first let us bridge the gap between the captivity 
and the times cf the Messiah. 

Under Cyrus a considerable number of the Hebrews were permitted 
to go back to Palestine under the leadership of such men as Ezra, 
Nehemiah and Zerubbabel; they rebuilt the temple, though very mod- 
estly, and built again Jerusalem itself, but when Alexander the Great 
brought Greece to the height of her power, he took the empire that 
Cyrus had made powerful, and thus became the over-lord of Palestine. 
After his death in the partition cf his empire, Palestine fell to the 
lot of the Ptolemies of Egypt and many of them were carried off to 
Alexandria. Here, under the influence of Greek culture, they became 
the liberals of their people and split off from the Karaites (who accept 
no rabbinical teachings but hold the Scriptures to contain all that 
- Jehovah commanded) and the Scribes and Pharisees who reacted to 
the punishments for idolatry and became the great religionists that 
gave name to punctilious, formal worship. The Greek adherents were 
the Sadducees of our Lord’s time. The Greeks, although they de- 
stroyed the Temple and laid waste Jerusalem, could not uproot the 
Jews for they rallied around Maccabeus and regained their inde- 
pendence and kept it until 65 B.C. when Rome reached out its iron 
hand and snatched this much-fought-over country which lay between 
Egypt on the one hand, and Persia on the other. When the land had 
suffered what appeared to be everything that had been prophesied, for 
they had been scattered and their country had been laid waste, it 
was not even the beginning of sorrows, for now the long expected 
Deliverer came, the Messiah, in the person cf Jesus Christ of Naza- 
reth and they did not recognize Him. They chose instead of Him, as 
some are choosing to-day, the robber Barabbas who represented lawless- 
ness, plunder, greed and selfishness. “The ruling classes of the Jews 
were set in their ways and hard in their hearts. Their traditions and 
their vested interests alike were opposed to everything He had to offer. 
His freer faith and holier vision challenged them along the whole fron- 
tiers of their lives, indicted and angered them. They silenced Him 
by death, and the Jerusalem which rejected Him is remembered chiefly 
because He walked its streets on His rare visits there,’”’1° visits for the 
most part compulsory by the Jewish Law. For our Lord seemed to 
feel the hostility cf the religionists in Jerusalem, and only tarried there 
for the brief business that called Him thither. Twice He cleansed His 


10 Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 


20 Ninereento AnnuaL SxEssion 


Father’s House, once He wept over the city, and at last He went there 
to lay down His life, “for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of 
Jerusalem.” For, as Dr. Van Dyke so happily has it: 


“Christianity is an out-of-doors religion. From the birth in the grotto 
at Bethlehem (where Mary and Joseph took refuge because there was no 
room for them in the inn) to the crowning death on the hill of Calvary 
outside the city wall, all of its important events took place out of doors. 
Except the discourse in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, all of its great 
words, from the sermon on the mount to the last commission to the dis- 
ciples, were spoken in the open air. How shall we understand it unless we 
carry it under the free sky, and interpret it in the companionship of nature? 
where ‘there are larks singing in the air, storks parading beside the water- 
courses, falcons poising overhead, poppies and pink gladioluses and blue 
corn-cockles blooming through the grain,—an air so pure and soft that it 
is like a caress,—all seems to speak a language of peace and promise, as 
if one of the old prophets were telling of the day when Jehovah shall have 
compassion on His people Israel and restore them. They that dwell under 
His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the grain, and blossom as 
the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon,’ ”* 


The Christian will find His Lord out of doors in Palestine, and 
Jerusalem’s “significance lies in the Via Dolorosa down which He 
passed which has become the holiest street in the world; the hill upon 
which He was crucified which crowns humanity’s devotion, and the 
sepulchre in which He laid which has been a shrine for Pilgrims for 
2,000 years.” 

Jesus of Nazareth uttered prophecies against Jerusalem which were 
fulfilled during His own generation, and with the fulfillment of them, 
the utter disfavor of the Jews began and all the vials of wrath prophe- 
sied by Moses and all the prophets began to be consummated, and 
have been in process of fulfillment for two thousand years. “Seest 
Thou these buildings?” asked our Lord when His attention was called 
to the Temple which Herod had reared with great magnificence, “there 
shall not be left one stone upon ancther which shall not be thrown 
down.” 

About the year 70 A.D. Titus besieged the city, and in the bitter 
struggle that followed, a struggle so awful that it is said the Roman 
soldiers rode to their saddle girths in blood, and there were no trees 
left in the immediate forests because they were used to crucify the 
remaining Jews who were left in the city, although the majority in 


1 Henry Van Dyke: Out of Doors in the Holy Land. 
? Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 


Srate Lirerary AND HistoricaL AssocIATION 21 


the fortresses killed wives and children and committed suicide, Jeru- 
salem, although the center of ravages, was not the only sufferer. 


“The Romans destroyed town and country; and the inhabitants who 
escaped from the famine, the pestilence, the sword and captivity, were 
forcibly expelled from Judea, and fled as houseless wanderers, into all the 
surrounding regions. But they clung for a time around the land which 
their forefathers had possessed for so many ages, and on which they looked 
as an inheritance allotted by Heaven to their race; and they would not 
relinquish their claim to the possession of it by any single overthrow how- 
ever great. Unparalleled as were the miseries which they had suffered in 
the slaughter of their kindred, the loss of their property and their homes, 
the annihilation of their power, the destruction of their capital city, and 
the devastation of their country by Titus, yet the fugitive and exiled Jews 
soon resorted to their native soil; and sixty years had scarcely elapsed, 
when, deceived by an imposter, allured by the hope of a triumphant Mes- 
siah, and excited to revolt by intolerable oppression, they strove by a vig- 
orous and united but frantic effort to reconquer Judea, to cast off the 
power of the Romans, which had everywhere crushed them, and to rescue 
themselves and their country from ruin failed utterly and their condition 
was unutterably worse than before.’’13 

“The cities shall be wasted without an inhabitant. Every city shall be 
forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. They were rooted out of their 
land in anger and in wrath, and in great indignation,’’ said the prophet. 
Hyamson states that at one time the four inhabitants of Jerusalem were 
reduced to one man. 

“A public edict of the emperor Adrian rendered it a capital crime for a 
Jew to set foot in Jerusalem.”14 


After the Roman rule declined the Mohammedans desecrated the 
sacred places with their mosques and so outraged the Christian world, 
by the pollution of the scenes of the life of Jesus Christ, that for two 
hundred years the best blood of Western Europe was spilled to wrest 
Palestine from the hand of the Turk. All in vain. The prophecies 
will be fulfilled though the heavens fall; not even Christian nations 
were permitted to build the land again, it was “to be trodden down 
of the Gentiles until the times’ of the Gentiles should be fulfilled.” 

The Jews have been scattered among the nations—among the people, 
even from one end of the earth to the other. They have been removed 
into all the kingdoms of the earth; the whole remnant of them has 
been scattered unto all the winds; they have been dispersed throughout 
all countries, and sifted among the nations like as corn is sifted in a 
sieve, and yet not the least grain has fallen to the earth. 

“There is not a country on the face of the earth where the Jews are 


unknown. They are found alike in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. They 
are citizens of the world without a country. Neither mountain, nor rivers, 


13Keith on the Prophecies. 
14 Tertulius Ap. c. 21 p. 51 and Basnage’s Continuation of Josephus, b. 6. c. 9: p. 27. 


29 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


nor deserts, nor oceans, which are the boundaries of other nations, have 
terminated their wanderings. They abound in Poland, in Holland, in Russia 
and in Turkey. In Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Britain they are 
more thinly scattered. In Persia, China, and India on the east and the 
west of the Ganges, they are few in number among the heathen. They have 
trod the snows of Siberia, and the sands of the burning desert; and the 
European traveler hears of their existence in regions which he cannot reach, 
even in the very interior of Africa, south of Timbuctoo. From Moscow to 
Lisbon, from Japan to Britain, from Borneo to Archangel, from Hindustan 
to Honduras, no inhabitant nor any nation upon the earth would be known 
in all the intervening regions, but a Jew alone. 


“Both kings and people, Heathens, Christians and Mahometans, who are 
opposite in so many things, have united in the design to ruin this nation, 
and have not been able to effect it. . . . Their banishment from Judea 
was only the prelude to their expulsion from city to city, and from kingdom 
to kingdom. Their dispersion over the globe is an irrefragable evidence of 
this, and many records remain that amply corroborate the fact. Not only 
did the first and second centuries of the Christian era see them twice rooted 
out of their land, but each succeeding century has teemed with new calami- 
ties to the once chosen but now rejected race.’’15 


“In the fifth century they were expelled from Alexandria which had long 
been one of their safest places of resort. Justinian abolished their syna- 
gogues, prohibited them from even entering into caves for the exercise of 
their worship, rendered their testimony inadmissible, and deprived them 
of the natural right of bequeathing their property; and when such oppres- 
sive enactments led to insurrectionary movements among the Jews, their 
property was confiscated, many of them were beheaded, and so bloody an 
execution of them prevailed, that, as is expressly related, ‘all the Jews of 
that country trembled.’ ’’° 


“In Spain, conversion, imprisonment, or banishment were their only alter- 
natives. In France a similar fate awaited them. 

“They fled from country to country seeking in vain any rest for’ the sole 
of their foot. Mahomet, has from the precepts of the Koran, infused into 
the minds of his followers a spirit of rancour and enmity towards the 
despised and unbelieving Jews. The Church of Rome ever ranked and 
treated them as heretics. Philip Augustus expelled them in toto from 
France.”17 


“St. Louis twice banished, and twice recalled them; they were banished 
seven times from France; they were expelled from Spain. In England they 
suffered great cruelty and oppression. During the Crusades the whole nation 
united in the persecution of them. In York, England, 1500, the Jews were 
refused all quarter and perished by mutual slaughter. Edward I com- 
pleted their misery, seized all their property and banished them from the 
kingdom,”18 


1} Keith on the Prophecies. 

1 Basanage’s History, b. 6. ec. 21 No. 9. 
17 Hallam: Vol. 1 pp. 233, 234. 

18 Keith on the Prophecies. 


Srarp Lirprary AND HistoricaAL AssocIATION 23 


In Russia where they have been so numerous, they have been pericd- 
ically murdered, and even down to the present year the fury of their 
enemies seems not to have abated. 

The characteristics of the Jews are common to the whole human 
family. In countries like Russia under the Czarist regime where the 
government was autocratic, where the Jews were confined to certain 
areas, where they were limited in business opportunities, where they 
were denied equal rights under the law, and where they were oppressed 
for the sake of religion, they have done exactly as might be expected 
of ordinary mortals, they have made their living in precarious ways, 
not always within the letter of the law; they have evaded and circum- 
vented the excessive demands of government, and they have on occa- 
sion, joined the natural enemies of constituted authority. This re-action 
to oppression is, however, the normal result of prejudicial and dis- 
eriminatory treatment of any people. 

In France and in England under more humane laws, we find the 
Hebrews expanding under the liberal treatment of the government and 
developing a Disraeli in Britain, a Rothschild in France, and in our 
own land where they find themselves still more acceptable, a Nathan 
Straus and a Justice Brandeis. These prominent men indicate their 
possibilities in development of character when they have the law with 
them and not against them. Under a benign government they are 
public-spirited, hospitable and charitable toward the poor of the Gentile 
world and so benevolent to their own race that a Jew never becomes 
a charge upon the public charity, and seldom is one arraigned in the 
law courts. More quickly, more exactly and more thoroughly than any 
race, the Jews respond to treatment, and the nations of the earth who 
favor them, are promised by Jehovah, blessings of prosperity in their 
material undertakings. 

We come now to a consideration of the question, When did a turn 
in the affairs of the Jews begin? How was colonization made pos- 
sible? 

We find a clue to both questions in Isaiah 40:2: “Speak ye com- 
fortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accom- 
plished, and that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of 
the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”19 

It appears, then, that having been outcasts for a period twice as 
long as that when they enjoyed independent national existence, they 
would then be re-instated in their own land. 

The first instance of returning favor toward the Jew occurred in 
the reign of Queen Victoria when Disraeli became Prime Minister. 


9Tsa. 40: 2. 


24 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SEssIon 


Now if we take the year 1882, the date of the first permanent coloni- 
zation of Palestine, and consider it as the end of the time of disfavor, 
and reckon the destruction of Jerusalem in the year of the Babylonian 
captivity 586 B.C. as the beginning of disfavor, we will have a period 
of 2468 years. If this doubles the favored time, then by dividing it 
in half we get 1234 years, the period of favor. Counting backward 
1234 years from the Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C. we have the 
date 1820 B.C. which was the beginning of the nation under Jacob 
when they received the name Israelites. The time, then, of Disraeli, 
appears to have been “the set time to favor Zion.”?° 


“The determination of the Jewish people to recover a normal national 
life never limited itself to faith in a miraculous restoration independent 
of the effort of the Jews themselves (although the conviction that the 
restoration was certain to come one day was part of the faith of every 
Jew). A continuous series of efforts to restore the Jewish national life 
in Palestine marks the centuries of exile. But these were all abortive 
until the nineteenth century when Jews from Eastern Hurope began to 
drift in, brought thither mainly by the profound emotion of bliss of dying 
and being buried in the dust of the Holy Land. Every Jew who settled 
in Palestine was a link between the Diaspora and the land of Israel, for 
it was the duty and the pleasure of his brethren to maintain in Palestine 
men given up to meditation and study and dedicated to the spiritual life. 

“With Sir Moses Montefiore, whose journeys to Palestine began in the 
eighteen-thirties, Western Jewry began to occupy itself constructively with 
the Jewish restoration. There was established a fund for the cultivation 
of land in Palestine by the Jews. Sir Moses had the idea of obtaining 
extensive concessions, and so bringing about ‘the return of thousands of 
our brethren to the lands of Israel. Many years afterwards he summed 
up the goal of his striving in the following words: ‘I do not expect that 
all Israelites will quit their abodes in those territories in which they feel 
happy, even as there are Englishmen in Hungary, Germany, America, and 
Japan; but Palestine must belong to the Jews and Jerusalem is destined to 
become the city of a Jewish commonwealth.’ 

“The interest of Englishmen in the Jewish people and a Jewish Pales- 
tine dates back to the Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell felt as a servant 
of the Most High God, that he had a mission to the Jews. The same school 
of thought which permitted the Jews to return to England speculated 
further upon the Jewish Restoration to Palestine; and this religious interest 
fed upon the Bible and upon Protestantism, has survived in great strength 
down to our own day, as it is evident by a whole literature, including a 
book conceived in this spirit recently published by Sir Andrew Wingate, 
a distinguished ex-Indian civil servant. The religious element of English 
interest in Jewish nationalism was fortified by political considerations. The 
genius of Napoleon revived the statesmanship of Cesar and Alexander, and 
conceived as they did, of the Jewish people in Palestine as a pillar of 
empire in the Hast. When Napoleon started upon his expedition to Syria 
(1799), he issued a proclamation announcing his wish to restore the scat- 


i etse ey iu ba lp Ustad 


Srarre Literary anp Historican Association 25 


tered hosts of Jewry to their ancient land. There can be little doubt that 
this seed planted by Napoleon found lodgment in English minds. From 
Colonel Churchill to Laurence Oliphant can be seen sprouting the idea of 
serving God and Great Britain as well as the Jewish people, by recreating 
Jewish Palestine. It was an alternative solution of the Eastern question, 
to the maintenance of the decrepit Ottoman empire. This latter solution 
may be said to have been the orthodox one in the nineteenth century, and 
to have held the field in official England until the middle of the Great War; 
but the conflict of the two political conceptions persisted, although in a 
dormant condition, throughout the century, and in the end it was the larger 
and nobler that triumphed.’’21 

“The Colonization movement was in full force in 1882. Among the 
refugees were seventeen Russian Jews who settled on the site of the Biblical 
En Hakkore, the scene of one of Samson’s exploits about one hour and a 
half’s journey east of Jaffa. These colonists were members of the Bilu, an 
organization of Russo-Jewish students formed for the colonization of the 
Holy Land. The immigrants although members of the learned professions 
and graduates of Universities, worked on the land as common laborers, so 
intense was their zeal for the colonization of Palestine, so steadfast their 
faith in ultimate success.”22 


A number of philanthropists in western Europe began to take an 
interest in colonization, among them Laurence Oliphant, Lord Shafts- 
bury, Mrs. Finn and Baron Edmund de Rothschild who started the 
wine industry. This promised very well but when the wine became 
cheaper on the market than the Jews of Palentine could make it, they 
would have been ruined if Baron Rothschild had not bought up the 
entire output and sold it, which he did at a loss. After this experi- 
ment he gave his financial assistance through one of the local societies 
which insisted on a variety of crops rather than depend entirely upon 
the vineyards as they had done under the Rothschild patronage. 


“The pioneers in Palestine had eager sympathizers and ardent well 
wishers in the lands from which they came. Societies came into existence 
in many of the Jewish centers of Russia for the practical encouragement 
and assistance of the colonists. At the same time other societies for the pro- 
pagation of the nationalistic idea in Jewry were also formed. Of all these 
‘societies, that of Odessa was the most important and soon became the 
leader. Ultimately they all became organized as the Odessa Committee, an 
institution whose valuable work in and for Palestine has left a permanent 
mark on the prosperity of the land. Before that time these societies formed 
part of a world wide movement which became known as the Chovevé 
Zion, or Lovers of Zion. 'The Choveve Zion, as a practical movement, 
was not established in England until early in 1890. From that year 
onwards the movement in England continually gained strength, until the 
greater Zionist Movement created by Theodore Herzl in 1896, absorbed it. 
At first the wealthier classes in Anglo-Jewry for the most part held aloof, 


21H. Sacher: A Jewish Palestine, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1919. 
2 Hyamson: Palestine. 


26 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


and for some time it drew practically the whole of its strength from the 
poorer and foreign elements in the population. There were, however, some 
notable exceptions, and the interest increased as the ideal became better 
known and the work more effective. Elim d’Avigdor and his kinsman 
Col. A. E. W. Goldsmid were successively the heads of the movement; and 
among their most successful lieutenants were Herbert Bentwich and Mr. 
Joseph Prag. Other well-known English Jews who took a prominent part 
in the work of the Choveve Zion were the Rey. S. Singer, Sir Joseph 
Sebag Montefiore, and the late Lord Swaythling. On the platform of these 
“lovers of Zion” were also to be found at one religious extreme Dr. Her- 
mann Adler and at the other Dr. A. Lazy, Sir John Simon and Sir Julian 
Goldsmid. A young Israel was represented by branches of the Choveve 
Zion formed at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The English 
movement, like the greater one in Russia, devoted much of its resources 
to the assistance of the existing colonies but in addition it aided in the 
establishment of more than one new one. In the course of time the 
Choveve Zion in England presented a petition to the Porte, which was 
actively supported by both the outgoing Foreign Secretary (Lord Salisbury) 
and his successor (Lord Rosebery) and had also the practical sympathy 
of the United States Minister to Turkey. The restrictions on the purchase 
of land were soon removed, through the influence of Baron Edmund de 
Rothschild, of Paris, as well as of the British and American Foreign Offices, 
and in 1892 the English Society joined forces with its co-workers in 
Ekaterinoslaw and New York to acquire land in the Hauran, east of 
the Jordan. In 1893 the whole of the movement throughout the world 
was brought into closer co-operation by the formation of a central repre- 
sentative committee at Paris at the instance of the eminent Russo-Jewish 
physicist Dr. Waldemar Haffkine who was then resident in Paris. The 
first Zionist Congress opened on the 29th of August, 1897, when 204 dele- 
gates were present. They came from almost every country of Europe as 
well as from the United States and Palestine. The outstanding result of 
the Congress was the adoption of the following program: 


Zionism strives to create for the Jewish people in Palestine a home 
secured by public law. The Congress contemplates the following means. 
to the attainment of this end: 

(1) The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine 
by the Jewish agricultural and industrial workers; 


(2) The organization and binding together of the whole of Jewry 
by means of appropriate institutions local and international, in accord- 
ance with the laws of each country; 

(3) The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment 
and consciousness; 


(4) Preparatory steps towards obtaining Government’s consent, where 
necessary, to the attainment of the aim of Zionism.’’23 


23 Hyamson: Palestine. 


Srate Lirprary anp HistoricaLt Association 27 


Mr. Israel Friedlaender in the “Century Magazine,’ April, 1919, 
says of the Zionist Movement: 


“This fundamental attitude of the Jewish people towards its common- 
wealth has been essentially retained and developed by modern Zionism. 
Though refusing to acknowledge the metaphysical basis of the prophetic 
ideal, they passionately cling to the ideal itself. To them, too, Zion is 
primarily an opportunity for the Jewish people to express itself in accord- 
ance with its ancient ideals and aspirations. They realize that while modern 
Jewry has made great material progress as a result of Jewish emancipation, 
and while it has ccntributed far more than its share to the spiritual life 
of the nations in which the Jews live, it has done very little for its own 
distinct culture and spiritual development. They point to the fact that to 
mention a concrete example, while the Jews have furnished an amazingly 
high quota of musicians and artists to the world, they have failed to develop 
a distinct Jewish music or a distinct Jewish art. The Zionists, there- 
fore, are forced to the conviction that if the Jewish people is to remain true 
to its highest interests, it indispenmsably needs a center in which it may 
have a chance to develop its ideals and to express itself in its own manner 
of life and thought, and thereby add its distinct contribution to the treasury 
of mankind.”24 


Our narrative brings us now to the beginning of the World War. 
We quote Dr. David Baron in the Sunday School Times for February 
17, 1918: 


“Tt is now a well known fact that the chief instrument in interesting 
the leading British statesmen and politicians in the national future of the 
Jewish nation, and in eventually calling forth the momentous ‘Declaration’ 
was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who has recently been elected president of the 
English Zionist Federation. There is a romance of God’s Providence in 
his career. A Russian by birth, and a student of Chemistry while also an 
enthusiastic Zionist, he came to England about 25 years ago and soon 
became prominent in chemical research. Early in the war in a dangerous 
erisis in the history of the British Empire, he was able by his genius and 
discoveries to render the greatest service to the cause of Britain and her 
Allies. When asked in the course of interviews with members of the 
British Cabinet, what remuneration he expected, his reply was that he 
wanted no reward in money, but only the promise that if and when the 
Allies were victorious they would help the Zionists in the realization of 
their national aspirations in relation to Palestine. ‘Like Esther,’ Dr. Baron 
reminds us, ‘it might be said of Dr. Weizmann, who knoweth whether thou 
art come to the kingdom for such a time as this’?”25 


Anticipating the time by a few years, we quote at this juncture the 
famous Declaration contained in an official letter written by Arthur 


24Tsrael Friedlaender: Zionism. 
David Baron: Sunday School Times, Feb. 17, 1918. 


28 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION 


James Balfour, of the British Foreign Office, to Lord Rothschild, Vice- 
Chairman of the English Zionist Federation, in November, 1918: 


“His Majesty’s Goverment view with favor the establishment in Pales- 
tine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best 
endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.” 


For nearly 2,000 years the Jews have prayed daily in their syna- 
gogues in the four quarters of the world, 


“Sound the great trumpet for our freedom, and lift up a banner to 
gather our captives and gather us together from the four quarters of the 
earth. And to Jerusalem Thy city, return Thou in mercy and dwell therein 
as Thou hast promised. Rebuild it speedily, in our day as an everlasting 
building, and set up therein the throne of David. Blessed art Thou, Lord, 
Who rebuildest Jerusalem.” 


We cannot listen to the pathos of this great petition without being 
reminded of the promise: 


“And it shall come to pass that the Lord shall set His hand again a 
second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left from 
Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from 
Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. 
And He shall set up an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the 
outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four 
corners of the earth.’’** 

“Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows? 
Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring 
thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name 
of the Lord Thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath 
glorified thee. And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and 
their kings shall minister unto thee; for in my wrath I smote thee but 
in my favor have I had mercy on thee.’’27 

“Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope.’’28 

“And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they 
shall build the waste cities and inhabit them.’’29 


And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings 
shall minister to thee. “God has His mysteries of grace,” and in the 
working out of His plans, kings and peasants bow to His will; even 
the unlawful ambition of men flaunted in the very face of the Deity 
is turned into the accomplishment of the unalterable plans and pur- 
pose of the great God. 


acre) pital al kagaralieg 
ST itsa. \6Alt{) Ai. 

8 Zech.' 9: 12. 

2 Amos 9 13. 


Spars LireRARY AND HistroricaL AssocIATION 29 


The world for the most part regarded the speeches of the German 
Kaiser with unconcealed amusement when he went on his famous pil- 
grimage to the Holy Land via Constantinople. He was at great pains 
to proclaim so close a brotherhood-of-man policy between himself and 
the unholy Turk, that his very photograph in Turkish uniform, was 
widespread through the Ottoman empire, and he was said to have 
adopted the faith. There was much method in this madness; there 
was method in his Palestine plans. In Turkey he challenged the power 
of Britain, in Syria he challenged the power of France. It took years 
of persistent posing and speech-making before he could substantially 
weaken Great Britain’s influence in Turkey, and it took years of 
German colonizing before the dwellers in Palestine really understood 
his schemes there. It was not enough that he planted colonies at Jaffa 
and Jerusalem, not enough that he should declare himself at the tomb 
of Saladin the “Protector of Islam,” nor that he should costume him- 
self like a crusader of old, and with all the magnificence of the great 
Frederick Barbarossa, that he had a breach made in the wall large 
enough and imposing enough for him and his retinue to pass through 
gloriously. There was still a worse infamy,—on the top of the Mount 
of Olives he caused to be erected a great hospice with apparent benevo- 
lent intent, and in it! and upon it was installed the most powerful wire- 
less apparatus in the whole world; on top of Mount Zion he built a 
German Church on a solid concrete foundation; at the Damascus gate 
a hospital. "he German language was imposed upon the school chil- 
dren through Turkish influence, and the Jews were persecuted and rose 
in rebellion over the insult and the curtailment of their privileges. 

We are remembering that not until 1896 did the Germans make any 
noticeable progress in Asia Minor. It was that year that Germany 
declined to join a league for the enforcement of toleration of the 
Armenian. The Kaiser saw that he could gain rather than lose by 
encouraging the Sultan in his nefarious schemes, and as the Berlin- 
Bagdad project was then the goal of his ambition, he was bending 
every energy in secret to gain his objective, the while he was lulling 
the world to sleep with his peaceful cradle songs. 


“Tt is probably little understood how many and varied are the schemes 
comprised in the expression, the Berlin-to-Bagdad-Concessions. Not only 
were the actual financial concessions wrung from Abdul Hamid’s Gov- 
ernment as the blood money in payment for which he would be permitted 
to continue his orgy of lust and murder—such as would undoubtedly bring 
the whole of Turkey under German Dominion and make Constantinople 
practically a German city—but the forest, mining and other rights con- 
nected with the scheme would insure the Asiatic possessions of Turkey 
coming directly under German influence and control. 


30 NiInETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


“The pressing on of the building of the railway at the rate of a mile 
a day just before the outbreak of the war, to a great German naval port 
at Koweit was to give Germany a direct outlet to the Persian Gulf and 
the shores of India; Afghanistan was to be bribed, and with the occupation 
of Persia, and the advance through Afghanistan, and by sea from Koweit, 
it would not be hard, the Germans thought, to destroy once and for all, 
the British dominion in India. This scheme was to be aided, if not entirely 
accomplished by means of a Jehad or Holy War, launched as it afterwards 
was, from Constantinople, at which the Faithful in all countries were to 
rise and to push the infidel—excluding only the German allies of Turkey— 
into the sea. The extension of the railways to Palestine made progress 
possible towards the Suez Canal and Hgypt. The linking up of the German 
possessions in Hast and West Africa was to cut the line of the Cape-to-Cairo 
Railroad, disposing forever of that ‘far-fetched British scheme,’ leaving the 
German free to strike north and south at his future convenience until 
finally Africa became his own. The economic control of Russia was no 
dream, as we have seen in later days; and thus with a great capital at 
Bagdad, a vast Eastern Empire was to be established and German power 
to rule without let or hindrance from Hamburg to Singapore.’ 


After the first Balkan War, Germany was bothered with the new 
Servia and Bosnia which rose out of it. Eventually Bosnia was elimi- 
nated, and Servia alone blocked her progress to the far East. Busrah, 
the natural port of Mesopotamia, is not a suitable terminus for the 
Berlin-Bagdad Railway, and Germany wished to possess the harbor 
of Koweit. The Persian Sheik, loyal to the British Government, would 
not consent, and Germany began a long process of entangling Great 
Britain and Persia in endless difficulties over the matter until the 
former was about to sign an agreement with the Kaiser giving him 
the coveted port when the war broke out. 

Palestine itself formed no part in the great offensive and defensive 
plans of Great Britain,—indeed it was unimportant except for its 
geographical position lyimg between the Mohammedan bloe on the 
East and the Egyptian bloc on the West, but it was the fact that the 
Suez Canal, the vital artery of Great Britain was menaced, that the 
defense of Egypt was undertaken. Then it was found that the enemy 
could not cross the Sinai Desert except by certain routes, clearly defined 
by the position of the springs and wells, and that only along the 
northern route which skirts the Mediterranean coast, was the water- 
supply sufficient to maintain any large body of troops. So a plan was 
formed to go out into the desert and secure control of the water, which 
could be done with far fewer troops than were necessary to defend the 
long line cf the canal. The scheme succeeded. The Turks were 
slowly and steadily driven back from the water-bearing areas and a 


30 Wardlaw Milne: The Key to the War. 


Sratm Lirprary anp Histroricat AssocraTion 31 


large force was freed and sent to France. The Sinai Desert, which 
was in the main a struggle against nature, has, since the days of 
Moses, stood as an almost impenetrable barrier between Egypt and the 
East, and it was after the failure of his Syrian campaign that Napo- 
leon who had crossed most of the frontiers cf Europe, announced his 
opinion that a desert is the most effective defensive barrier against 
military aggression. 


“Why then,’ asks Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice who was with 
General Allenby, ‘did we go into the Sinai Peninsula to meet the Turks 
instead of leaving them to face the difficulties of the desert? The Turks 
were building a railway from the frontier of Palestine and if they had 
been allowed to extend it and to make at their leisure arrangements for 
storing water, we should have had an attack upon Egypt in force, which 
was most undesirable to await passively. Furthermore, it was of the highest 
importance to keep open the Suez Canal at all times, as through it passed 
large numbers of men and tons of foodstuffs and materials, coming from 
Australasia and India. 

“We therefore moved eastward along the coast route into the Sinai 
Peninsula, building a broad gauge railroad as we went and we were very 
soon brought up against a very serious difficulty. It was discovered that 
the brackish water of the pools and wells suited to the stomachs of the 
Arabs and the Turks, was not potable for Europeans and their animals. 
Water, then for the army, had to be brought from Egypt, and a pipe line 
with innumerable pumping stations and reservoirs was constructed across 
the desert. Britain, busy making up her arrears in the supply of muni- 
tions of war, could not at that time make pipes of the required size and 
they were furnished by the United States and carried over 4,000 miles to 
their destination. The considerable army at Gaza was, for the most part, 
drinking water borne through these pipes from the Nile in Egypt.’’31 


It will be rememberd that the Turks were defeated before Kut but 
later General Townsend’s expedition failed of its objective. His whole 
campaign was for the defense of India, but when the enemy deter- 
mined to recapture Bagdad it brought Allenby’s forces which were 
protecting Egypt into conjunction with the aims of Townsend’s cam- 
paign. To break the concentration of the Turks and Germans which 
had Aleppo for the objective, it was decided, says Maurice, 


“That it would be more effective and more economical of power. 
to strike from the frontier of Palestine than to reinforce our troops in 
Mesopotamia, the most distant of our theatres of war, where our troops 
were already more than 500 miles from the coast. Accordingly the prepa- 
rations for attack upon the strongly entrenched positions which the enemy 
had constructed between Gaza and Beersheba were made as secretly as 
possible. 


31 Maj.-Gen. Frederick Maurice: War in the Far Hast. 


32 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


“The hardships which the troops had to endure were severe, many of 
them having only one bottle full of water for 48 hours of great heat and 
choking dust. As soon as the flanking movements had made progress, the 
line of Gaza was assaulted and the Turks fell back in disorder. The pur- 
suit was continued relentlessly as far north as Jaffa, the eager cavalry 
giving the enemy no time to rally, and bringing off a number of brilliant 
charges. 

“The Turkish army was completely broken up and lost 10,000 prisoners 
and 80 guns. Our troops had out-distanced their supply columns, and a 
halt had perforce to be called to bring up food and munitions and stores 
before they could move into the hills of Judea toward Jerusalem.’’32 


What was the state of affairs in Palestine at this time? What had 
been happening in that distant and silent land? Madam Ben Yehudah 
in a notable article entitled Palestine Before the War, gives us a 
careful chronicle: 


“In 1913, the year before the war, the 35th year from the beginning of 
the Jewish National Movement in Palestine, first under the terrible regime 
of Sultan Abdul Hamid, and later under the Young Turkish Constitution, 
Jewish life in Palestine began to define itself as national in character. 

“The number of Jews in the Holy Land had increased approximately 
to 150,000. In the principal cities, Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, the Hebrews 
formed the majority of the population, counting 80,000 in Jerusalem alone. 
In Judea, Samaria and Galilee they were in possession of extensive lands, 
and they had founded over 60 colonies. . . . These were the marvel of 
the natives. From afar off the houses could be seen rising in the midst 
of verdure, like oases in a desert. The dwellings were well constructed. 
The wide streets were adorned with dignified public buildings, schools and 
hospitals. 

“Domestic industries had arisen including wine, silk-worms, olive oil and 
soap. Orange, almond and apricot orchards charmed the eye. The per- 
fume plantations of roses (for making ottar of roses), geraniums and other 
flowers resembled a Paradise. Cultivated fields extended so far that the 
aspect was like a sea of verdure, where formerly had been the desert 
wilderness. 

“Machine shops and factories were opened for the production of articles 
of building construction, household utensils, and agricultural implements. 
Arts and crafts were developed (in the Bezalel Schools): knitting, weav- 
ing, basketry, metal work, lace, pottery, wood carving, jewelry. Commerce 
increased. The oranges, almonds and especially the wines of Palestine won 
renown in the markets of Egypt, and on distant shores. 

“Jews from various parts of the world began to unite in the Holy Land, 
and to become assimilated. Thus a new and healthy generation sprang into 
being,—straight, well formed, filled with the pride of race and love of 
country. 

“The Hebrew tongue was the common language of this generation and 
fired the Hebrew soul with patriotism. 


32 Maj.-Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice: War in the Far East. 


Srarr Lirprary anp Historicat AssocrIaTIon 30 


“The old Turkish Government under Abdul Hamid made no objection to 
this development of the Hebrew language, which they considered of ‘no 
importance.’ But they systematically impeded the progress of the Jews 
in every other direction. They issued decrees against Jewish ownership of 
land and colonization, against the planting of orchards and the draining 
of marshes. 

“There was a remarkable harmony between the various Jewish divisions; 
the devout orthodox, the free thinkers, and the Nationalists, now called 
Zionists, all seemed in accord. 

“The various Jewish schools united in reunions for festivals and excur- 
sions, under the flag of the Zionists, and speaking one common language, 
Hebrew. 

“There was a general sense of happiness and prosperity. 

“The Jews awaited the opening of their fine Polytechnic schools at Haifa 
as an auspicious event, an expression of the Jewish National idea before 
the world, but especially from Russia, America and Germany. The cura- 
torium was directed by a committee in Berlin. Instruction in Hebrew had. 
been assured, therefore, when a courier arrived from Berlin, announcing 
that the instruction should be in German, the news was like a thunder- 
bolt.” 

Later this matter of the language set the Jews in two hostile camps, 
but the Zionists who declared for Hebrew were much stronger, and opened 
up schools of their own in their own language, and the German schools fell 
into decay. 

“However,” continues Madam Ben Yehudah, “the season was prosperous, 
the harvests were promising. And there was an unusual flood of tourists. 
Among the visitors arrived the Baron Edmund de Rothschild, the cele- 
brated patron of the Jewish colonies. The Jewish youths and maidens 
went to meet them clothed in the national colors, white and blue, and 
mounted on horseback. The populace of Jerusalem received Baron Roths- 
child with greater honors than they had bestowed on Emperor William 
himself. The Zionists created a national guard to surround him. Other 
visitors were Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald who paid almost exclusive 
attention to the Nationalists. Finally there arrived in Jerusalem Mr. and 
Mrs. Morgenthau. All the foreign powers as well as the Turkish officials 
in Jerusalem did homage to the Jewish representative of the United States, 
and this increased the prestige of the Jews in the Holy Land. 

“The Ambassador was impressed by the renaissance of Jewish life in 
Palestine, but he regretted the internecine conflict over the language ques- 
tion. Mr. and Mrs. Morgenthau gave a great dinner to which most of the 
eminent Moslems and Christians and the noted Jews of the opposing par- 
ties were invited. Several diplomatic speeches were made regarding the 
amicable relations between the Jews, Moslems and Christians, America and 
Turkey, but the two separate companies among the Jews remained divided. 

“Devout Jews assembled on the Fast of Ab at the Wailing Place where 
they were accustomed to assemble each year, to mourn for the destruction 
of Jerusalem. They watered the ancient foundation stones with their tears 
and entreated the Lord of Hosts saying, ‘Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, 
and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old.’ 

3 


34. NiInetEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


“In this Jewish prayer, all Jewish hearts of the world unite. In the 
utterance of this prayer one era was terminated, and a new era was 
ushered in,—for upon the very day of the Fast of Ab, the Great War was 
declared in Europe. 

“From the beginning of the Great War, Palestine suffered because lew 
ships visited the native ports and soon there was a scarcity of necessities, 
either because the goods had not arrived, or had been hoarded by the 
merchants. Although Turkey herself was not at war, the day after the 
Germans commenced hostilities in Europe, the Turks mobilized their troops 
and commandeered all the horses, camels and mules. They unharnessed 
horses and left carriages standing in the middle of the streets. The usual 
means of communication were cut off. Turkish officials visited the villages 
and returned driving flocks of young men who were drafted into the army. 
To arouse enthusiasm, a public ovation was given to the drafted men in the 
streets. 

“In Jaffa there appeared a gigantic young Arab who was surrounded by 
dervishes flourishing naked swords. With a hoarse cry he shouted: ‘The 
religion of Mohammed advances by the sword’ and this refrain was repeated 
by the populace with savage cries. 

“To inflame his followers, he cried again: ‘The sword demands blood! 
Allah preserve our Sultan’! 

“This Arab demonstration knew no bounds, and the common people fied 
in terror. In Jerusalem evil days were foreseen. People began to hoard 
their supplies for the years ahead. The Syrian Christians were in a panic. 
In their houses they hid themselves, trembling with fear and saying that 
they would be the first to be massacred, partly on account of their well- 
known friendship for the French and the English. The Armenians declared 
that the greatest peril awaited them, for of a certainty they had been 
marked in advance for the slaughter. They pointed out that the Jews 
were well organized and had some protectors because at the request of Mr. 
Morgenthau the United States battleship Tennessee, under the never-to-be- 
forgotten Captain Decker, had been sent to Palestine with supplies for the 
Jews. A little later on the North Carolina arrived with Mr. Maurice 
Wertheim with $50,000 in gold for the relief of the Jews. Almost every 
one who could do so, left the country. 

“The consulates of France, England and Russia were surrounded by 
spies so that anyone, even entering the doors, was immediately under the 
suspicion of the Turks; while the German Consulate was the meeting place 
of government officials . . . who became insolent and began a syste 
matic persecution of the Jews. . . . From the beginning of the war the 
inhabitants of Palestine cherished the hope that Great Britain would find 
a pretext to take possession of Palestine, and they were heartbroken after 
all their troubles, that England did not intervene, and then Turkey declared 
war on the side of Germany. One of the first steps was the announcement 
of the ‘Jehad”’ It was imagined that the whole Moslem population of the 
world, 300,000,000 strong, would rise under the green banner of Mahomet, 
and humanity itself would be in danger. 

“The terror in Jerusalem was extreme. A few courageous Jews and 
Christians approached certain Mohammedans and earnestly inquired what 
the Jehad would signify to themselves. The explanation was brief, as fol- 
lows: 


Srate Lirrrary anp HistoricaLt AssocraTION 35 


“<Tt signifies that every faithful Moslem is required to slay at least four 
unbelievers.’ 

“To impress the public, the authorities ordered forty fanatical Circas- 
sians, fully armed, to ride on horseback through the streets of Jerusalem. 
Silently they passed, brandishing naked scimitars. This was to the inhabi- 
tants of the city the only visible sign of the Holy War. 

“In the spring of 1915 news arrived that the Turkish Army had suc- 
cessfully traversed the desert. A later dispatch announced the crossing of 
the Suez Canal—this occasion was celebrated by the illumination of Jeru- 
salem. Almost immediately, however, the news arrived of the defeat of the 
Turks. The Mohammedans were crestfallen. The Germans failed to conceal 
their disdain for the Turkish prowess and their scorn for the Turkish Army. 
Jews and Christians avoided being seen on the streets, fearing to be accused 
of joy, and in their houses they trembled in dread of the homecoming of the 
defeated army. 

“Djemal Pasha shut himself up in the wall of the Augusta Victoria Me 
morial on the Mount of Olives, and refused to see any one, not even the most 
eminent personages. Thus closed ignominiously one scene in the oriental 
dream of power which Kaiser Wilhelm had dreamed for himself in Jerusalem. 
In this very Augusta Memorial there is a great throne room in which two 
thrones stand. 

“Tn 1916 a second expedition was launched against the Suez Canal with 
an army of 250,000 men under the command of the German, Von Kress, but 
it was not more successful than the first enterprise. . . . Not only the 
Moslems, but even the Germans began to perceive that their star was waning 
in the Holy Land. Notwithstanding, the immense German propaganda waged 
continuously for ten years before the war, to convince the Arabs that the 
land belonged to the Arabians, the ancient tradition now revived concerning 
the destiny of the Jews to possess the land, persecutions increased in vio- 
lence. Great suffering was inflicted to induce the Zionists to betray the 
English. 

“Gaza was taken by the British and recovered by the Turks, remaining 
in their hands seven months. In June, 1917, General Allenby captured Beer- 
sheba and then Gaza. Ludd surrendered, Ramleh fell; on November 16th 
Jaffa was captured. Victorious British troops then marched upon Jerusalem. 

“For three years the Holy City had suffered privations and sorrows. It 
was as if the plague had raged within its walls. Most of the houses were 
closed because the inhabitants were dead, or deported, exiled or in prison. 
Deserted were the streets. One dreaded to be seen out of doors for fear of 
falling victim to the rage of the Turks. 

“People hid themselves in cellars and subterranean passages, where life 
continued underground by the light of olive oil lamps. 

“Even in these hiding places one heard the roar of Turkish cannon, which 
was directed against the Tomb of Samuel, where the English had fortified 
themselves. One passionate desire filled the hearts of Jews and Christians 
alike, as they waited for the hour of deliverance. Their faith in the vic- 
torious strength of the British failed not. They prayed that God would 
deliver them by a miracle, and show His hand as in the former days. 

“In the meantime, Turkish cannon was destroying the Tomb of Samuel, 
and the English were making a movement whose object was to encircle 


36 NryeteentH ANNUAL SEssIon 


Jerusalem. The Turks and the Germans commanded that the city should 
be defended, and they sent for reinforcements from Damascus. The garrison 
was not sufficiently strong in numbers or in morale to sustain the attack 
without aid. When the reinforcements failed to arrive, the Turks perceived 
that they would be obliged to evacuate. In great haste they arrested every 
one whom they caught on the streets, including the Dutch Consul and a 
distinguished Austrian physician, a member of the Board of Health. 

“In these terrible days in Jerusalem, Jews and Christians fasted and 
prayed. Their common sorrow and desolation drew them nearer to one 
another. They sought concealment in the darkest cellars and deepest sub- 
terranean passages. 

“Tt was in this darkness and dread that the Jews awaited the coming of 
their great festival of light and gladness, Han-uc-ca, the Feast of Deliverance 
in former days, and now approaching as the day of destruction. The women, 
weeping, prepared the oil for the sacred lights and even the men wept, saying 
that this would be the last time they should keep the feast in Jerusalem! 
They strained their ears to hear the horses’ hoofs, and the tread of the 
soldiers coming to arrest them and drive them forth. The women pressed 
their children to their breasts, crying: ‘They are coming to take us! The 
persecutors, the assassins!’ 

“Then suddenly other women came rushing from the outside down into the 
depths crying: 

“TOSANNA! HOSANNA! The British, the British have arrived!’ 

“Weeping and shouting for joy, Jews and Christians, trembling over one 
another, emerged and rushed forth from the caverns, holes and underground 
passages. 

“With loud cries, with outstretched hands, they blessed the company of 
their deliverers, who advanced in a glory of light, for all Jerusalem was 
illuminated by the crimson light of the setting sun . . . in the very begin- 
ning of Hanucca, the Feast of the Miracle of Lights. 

“At noon on the 8th of December, 1917, a representative of General 
Allenby, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces operating in Palestine, 
received from the Mayor of Jerusalem, the surrender of the city. 

“On December 10th, at noon, General Allenby made his official entry into 
the city by the Jaffa road.’’33 

“General Allenby entered the town on foot. Small detachments of in- 
fantry and cavalry, drawn from Britain’s far-flung battle line, were drawn 
up outside, while French and Italian soldiers were marshalled inside the 
Jaffa Gate as the Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by the representatives of 
America, France and Italy, passed through it. 

“The breach in the wall made for the Kaiser’s entry in 1898—a breach 
still unrepaired—is near by. But General Allenby came in by the door. 
There is a profound significance in the contrasting ways in which England 
and Germany entered the city, for the open gate stands for order and obedi- 
ence to the law, while the breached wall represents pride, arrogance and 
force. There is, moreover, an ancient saying as to the character of those 
who prefer some other way of coming in than by the door.’’34 


33 Madam Ben Yehudah: Jerusalem—Its Future and Redemption. 
*% Atkins: Jerusalem Past and Present. 


Srate Lirrrary anp Historrcat AssocraTion 37 


Not a gun was fired into the city of Jerusalem, it was taken without 
bloodshed, without viclence, and as for the twenty-fourth time Jeru- 
salem passed from one power to the other, it had the backing of the 
Jews themselves, for hundreds of them enlisted under the Allies’ banner 
at Jaffa, and their blood flowed with that of their deliverers as they 
fought their way to Jerusalem. To the inhabitants of the city Gen- 
eral Allenby made the following announcement: 


“Since your city is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of 
the greatest religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the 
prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of these three re- 
ligions for many centuries, therefore, do I make known to you, that every 
sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, 
pious bequest, or customary place of prayer of whatever form belonging to 
the great religions of mankind will be maintained and protected according 
to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.” 


Thus has Jerusalem passed into hands of the nation that has, of all 
others, the greatest genius for governing colonials. One who does not 
antagonize the natives, one who does not counteriance religious persecu- 
tion, one that fears the God of the Jews, and honors His great and 
terrible name. 

After the occupation of the city, the first problem of improvement 
encountered was that of the water supply. 


“That part of Palestine south of Beersheba has been piped with water 
from the Nile by British Royal Engineers with American equipment—the 
realization, it is said, of a dream thousands of years old. Several millions 
of gallons a day are pumped from the canal near Kantara across the Suez 
Canal into Palestine. . . . On the western slopes of Palestine the valleys 
form excellent reservoir sites for collecting the winter rains, though they 
would often have to be treated to prevent loss by percolation. The problem 
of the water supply of Jerusalem has been attacked by such noted men as 
Hezekiah—who constructed a tunnel which is today an ‘almost unexplain- 
able’ engineering feat—Solomon, Pontius Pilate and Herod. In the spring of 
1918, the British, using much of the Roman work, installed a six-inch line 
from the springs of Wady-el-Arub, about sixteen miles south of Jerusalem, 
through which more than 200,000 gallons a day are now flowing into the 
city.”35 

“The tank which Pontius Pilate began was never completed, because the 
Roman Government frowned upon the heavy cost of the water system which 
he proposed. The British, immediately upon their capture of the Holy City, 
began the repair and completion of this tank, which has a capacity of 
5,000,000 gallons. An aqueduct leads to it from an inexhaustible spring.’’36 


* Capt. Carson of the American Red Cross: Journal of the American Medical Asson., Aug. 
FAIS. pasa. 
30°C. W. Whitehair: The Last Crusade. 


38 NineteentH AnNvuAL SESSION 


And it has come to pass in our days that the Christians of the world 
have conceived a great desire to see the redemption of the ancient people 
of the Lord. As though a veil had been lifted from their hearts also, 
and the Jew, once despised and persecuted, has found favor in the sight 
of the worshippers of Jesus of Nazareth, because their hearts have been 
moved by their sufferings and by their faithful love of the traditions, 
and greater than this—because a large part of the Church of God pray- 
ing earnestly THY KINGDOM COME, believe-that it can come only 
after the Jews have been turned again home. “Thus saith the Lord of 
Hosts: In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall lay hold 
cut of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of 
him that is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you; for we have heard that 
God is with you.’ ”37 We have indeed heard that God is with the Jew. 
“The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; 
and all they that have despised thee shall bow themselves down at the 
soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee the City of the Lord, the Zion 
of the Holy One of Israel.” 

At the Peace Conference there was, strangely enough, a Council of 
Ten drawn from as many nations, and many Christian bodies see in the 
concurrence of these national representatives to the proposition of giv- 
ing the Jews freedom to live in Palestine developing their cwn culture 
unmolested, a fulfillment of the prophecy. 

“There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jeru- 
salem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the 
streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets 
thereof. Behold I will save my people from the east country and from the 
west country and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of 


Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth 
and in righteousness.’’39 


Spiritual Israel even the chosen of the Lord Jesus Christ whom 
He has gathered out of the world to be witnesses to Him is speeding 
the Jew upon his way home. This unity of aim was rather conspicu- 
ously set forth in a Christmas verse which appeared in 1918 after the 


armistice was signed: 

“Adown the hills of Palestine, 
Across the silver sea, 

The tidings of the angels tell 
Of peace that is to be; 

For all the hills of Palestine 
Are safe in (Christian hands, 

And peace on earth begins again 
In far-off Jewish Lands.’’40 


37 Zech. 8:23. 

38 Tsa. 60:14. 

38 Zech. 8: 4, 5, 7, 8. 8 
40 Tane T) Wood. 


Sratp Lirerary anp HistroricaLt Association 39 


Out of the confusion and disorder and clash of interest there is one 
unity of purpose, one unity of desire,—the only spiritual result of its 
kind of the war,—the wish of Jew and Protestant alike, that Palestine 
should become again, sacred to the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth 
looks to it for a spiritual authority, not as though the mouth of man 
should proclaim from it a new law, or that man should utter infallible 
things, but that the pure reign of the great God Who spoke on Sinai, 
should be set up in righteousness, and that the Moral Law should be 
revealed in the teachings of the Messiah Whom the Church expects a 
second time, and Whom the orthodox Jews still expect with a pathetic 
longing. 

Tt is well, however, to discriminate carefully between the very optim- 
istie views of the American Jews and the aspirations of the Zionist 
Commission in Palestine. American Jewry looks upon the Balfour 
Declaration as a virtual restoration of the Holy Land to Jewish political 
control under the mandatcry of one of the Great Powers. This is the 
extreme view, and it is probably fed on the hopes of millions of Chris- 
tians who would feel that such a condition indicated the consummation 
of the age, and the fulfillment of the “times of the Gentiles,” but on 
the cther hand, those who are facing facts, know that there is a great 
gulf between such a degree of national independence, and mere release 
from the bondage of Turkish oppression, which is the only substantial 
result of British victory in Palestine at the present time. The Zionist 
Commission in the Holy Land is occupied with relief work for the 
pocr Jews, is caring for the interrupted work of the colonies of which 
there are 60, and trying to unite the various contending factions of 
the Jews, and treating from time to time with the Arabs who are 
very strongly entrenched to the East, and more or less antagonistic to 
the Jews. The Hebrews in Palestine have no voice in the emergency 
government administered by Great Britain; they are consulted when 
any measures are to be introduced which may affect them, but other- 
wise they are considered one of the many ethnical groups of people 
dwelling in the land. It would be very unwise at the present to seek 
to change this condition. Britain has encouraged the Arabs to set up 
a kingdom of their own as a foil against the great Mohammedan 
world which is seeking quietly and persistently to unite all its divisions 
through a process of spiritual revival to fit them for the great struggle 
to which they are looking that will settle the supremacy of the rival 
religions of the world. This Arab State is composed of two genera- 
tions of Syrians who have been trained under the liberal teaching of 
American professors in the great American University. They are 


40 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


strongly contesting the rising power of the Jews which will frustrate 
their attempt to form a Greater Syria, especially as their seaport Haifa, 
is in the confines of ‘Palestine. 

But owing to the treaty or Triple Alliance which has been formed 
by agreement with the United States, France and Great Britain, there 
will be no divided authority, nor any division among those three great 
Powers which are virtually underwriting the security of the Jewish 
Nation. The latest advices from London (October 29, 1919) state 
that Great Britain is arranging with Prince Feisal, son of the King 
of Hedjaz, and with France, the Protector of Upper Syria, for the 
withdrawal of all British troops in the whole territory of occupation 
including Palestine, and the assumption of the duties of war-time 
emergency by the French and the Arabs, pending the conclusion of the 
Treaty of Peace. The underlying significance of this is that a big 
stride toward complete understanding has been reached by the two 
great powers in question. French sovereignty and Arab aspirations 
have been recognized by the British, and in thus giving them the con- 
trol of the disputed territory under pledge of protection for the Jews, 
Great Britain will be able to build her railroad line of communication 
from the Suez Canal through friendly countries with no danger of 
having to guard it in time of unrest. It would be quite impossible 
to construct it through Central Europe where she might find at any 
time the line cut by hostile German partisans. If the French by an 
understanding with the British, occupy the whole of Syria, Great 
Britain will be free to continue her railroad from Suez along the 
coastal plain as far as Mount Carmel, then cross the Jordan eastward 
south of Galilee, across the plains of Hauran to Aleppo where it will 
link up with the Bagdad Railroad which proceeds further eastward to 
India. 

Thus are the commercial and political moves of two nations which 
have been for generations friendly to the Jewish people tending toward 
the gradual up-building of a Greater Syria that will be in harmony 
with the moderate aspirations of the Jews, giving a homeland to as 
many as the country in its very limited size can accommodate without 
encroaching on the rights of the Arabs whose progress has advanced 
more rapidly and who have established a prior claim to a part of the 
disputed territory. 

It is estimated that 60 per cent of the Hebrews are Zionists or 
Nationals. They look for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine 
with a national language and with a degree of national independence 
under a protectorate; 25 per cent of the Hebrews are the Mizrachrists 
or Karaites, who represent the strictly spiritual element which rely 


— a o 


Srate LireraRy AND Histroricat Association 41 


solely upon the Word of God. These look for the Messiah to come to 
deliver them; 15 per cent are Polay Zionists, the working classes, pro- 
Ally, radical and convinced that they will be re-established in their 
land, with the same measure of national independence that was theirs 
under David, their most beloved King. This last class does a great 
deal of harm to the whole cause, and their indiscretions have caused 
many bitter encounters between their sect and the Moslems in Jeru- 
salem. The Jews themselves are perfectly aware of this prejudice, and 


the wisest are not forcing any issues at present. 


On September 12, 1919, there was held in Chicago, the 22nd annual 
convention of the Zionists of America. At this great meeting addresses 
were made by Justice Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Mrs. Mary Fels, 
Dr. Stephen Wise, Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Bernard Rosenblatt and 
others. It is significant of this great conference, that the report brought 
- in after all plans had been discussed and all views had been presented, 
and all aspirations had been voiced, was moderate and exhibited a 
spirit of wisdom most encouraging to all the well wishers of the move- 
ment. ist. A campaign is to be waged vigorously against malaria in 
advance of any extensive investment by the Jewish National Fund, 
the Zionist Commonwealth and cther purchasing corporations of the 
Zionist movement. 2nd. Afforestation is recommended to prevent en- 
croachment of sand to stabilize the rainfall and provide a timber sup- 
ply and irrigation. 3rd. Strong financial support to the Hebrew 
University is urged. 4th. Lines of development must be agricultural, 
industrial and commercial to provide for the incoming population in 
large numbers. 5th. Jewish settlements are to be confined to tracts 
now vacant or neglected. 6th. There must’ be no private speculation 
and monopoly of the soil, no commercial exploitation. 7th. Since the 
Arabs own about one-half the land, over 90 per cent of whom are 
illiterate and cculd not quickly be adapted to the new system of land 
tenure and taxation, it is proposed temporarily to ignore Arab real 
estate and apply progressive principles to the Turkish crown lands 
acquired by British conquest, and to the property of non-Arab popu- 
lation. Political aspirations were entirely suppressed, and the most 
that is hoped at present, is a liberal protectorate. The Convention 
delighted those whose expectations are based on the material building 
up a foundation for the spiritual; the convention was a disappoint- 
ment for those who hoped to see the Zionists go in and possess the 
land as the Israelites did of old, relying on the hand of the great 
Jehovah to lead them on. 


49 NiInetEeNtH ANNUAL SESSION 


Shrouded in impenetrable mystery, the land invites every shade of 
political and religious opinion, invites every devout pilgrim, invites 
every civil disaster. 

And it may be, O Jerusalem, that thy children shall come again to 
thee in peace, and that for poverty, thou mayest obtain riches, for 
ashes—beauty; for desolation—prosperity; and it may be that this 
new era is but a rift in the gray cloud of thy tragie destiny,—that 
pagan nations may envy thy dawning power only to wrest it from thee; 
that thy children may return to be scattered again, that thy walls may 
be rebuilded to be thrown down stone for stone, but like the mountains 
of Judea, thou shalt abide with thy hallowed history, with thine im- 
perishable past, with thy romantic, storied places, with thy sacred 
shrines, adding this last thrilling episode as a climax to the age; but thy 
name shall be deathless. 

For however it may fare with thy streets, thy gates, thy walls,— 
the eyes of the whole earth shall look forever toward Mt. Zion for the 
glorious appearing of the holy Jerusalem which shall be let down from 
heaven, a city four square and of heavenly beauty, adorned like a bride 
for her husband, the joy of the whole earth, where shall be seen the 
King in His beauty and with Him shall come the great consumma- 
tion, for Jerusalem shall satisfy the craving of the humble and of the 
great, and shall be not only the desire of the nations, but the home 
of the soul. 


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This Tuner WAS 


TRE Back Bone OF 
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Breaking of the Hindenburg Line at the St. Quentin Canal 


By Former Brieaprer-GeneraL L, D. Tyson 
Commanding 59th Brigade, 380th Division, A. DB. F. 

In giving this account of the Breaking of the Hindenburg Line 
along the St. Quentin Canal, I wish to state, in the first instance, that 
I have made it as accurate as possible from the information that is 
now obtainable. 

Tt must be remembered that the War Department has nct yet pub- 
lished the official records of the War, and it is almost impossible at 
this time to secure the reports of officers engaged in the operations 
described. In cases where I have not the personal knowledge, and 
where it was not possible to get access to all the reports desired, infor- 
mation has been obtained from newspapers and other sources, espe- 
cially from the Stars and Stripes, the practically official newspaper of 
the American Expeditionary Forces, which was published in Paris 
during the World War by American newspaper men. The latter news- 
paper had an excellent opportunity of securing accurate information, 
and access to official reports, that have not yet been published. 

The breaking of the Hindenburg Line along the St. Quentin Canal 
cannot be claimed by any one Division. It was a part of a large 
operation, and the American troops were acting as a Corps and, there- 
fore, the only fair and proper way to describe the operation, so far as 
the American troops are concerned, is to give an account of what the 
27th and 30th Divisions, composing the Second American Corps, accom- 
plished. 

As I was an officer of the 30th Division, in order that there shall 
be no possibility of claim that I have been partial, and in the belief 
that the account of The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line as given in 
the Stars and Stripes is accurate, and written from authentic informa- 
tion, if not from the actual reports, I have thought best to take many 
facts and much matter from accounts appearing in that newspaper. 

After the great drive of the Germans on the Western front in France 
and Belgium, beginning on the 21st of March, 1917, and their tremen- 
dcus successes, the British and French realized if they did not have 
assistance from America, and prompt assistance, the war would prob- 
‘ably be won by the Germans. 

To this end, it is reported, they made such representations to Presi- 
dent Wilson of their dire necessity, that! he agreed to send ten Ameri- 
ean Divisions to Northern France with all possible dispatch, provided 
ships could be cbtained. 


44 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


The British promised, and did furnish, a large amount of shipping. 
These ten American Divisions were transported as rapidly as possible 
into Northern France. Among them were the 27th and 30th Divisions, 
both National Guard Divisions; the 27th Division being largely from 
New York State and having been trained at Camp Wadsworth, near 
Spartanburg, S. C., and the other, the 30th Division, being composed, 
at that time, almost entirely of men from North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and Tennessee, and having been trained at Camp Sevier, near 
Greenville, S. C. 

While the great majority of the men in these two divisions were 
National Guard troops, there were many draft men, but the draft men 
in the 30th came almost exclusively from the three states of North 
Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. 

Afterwards both Divisions received thousands of replacements in 
France, and these came from many states, nearly every state in the 
Union being represented. 

The 27th Division arrived in an May 10, 1918 

The 30th Division arrived in France May 24, 1918. 

It will be interesting, perhaps, here to give a short historical sketch 
of the units of these Divisions, so far as known. 

The 27th Division was commanded throughout its entire career by 
Major-General John F. O’Ryan of New York, who belonged to the 
National Guard before the war, and was the only Major-General who 
was mustered in from a National Guard Division and served throughout 
the war. 

The 30th Division was commanded by a large number of general 
officers. It was first commanded by Major-General John F. Morrison, 
United States Army, then by Brigadier-General W. S. Scott, United 
States Army, then by Major-General Clarence P. Townsley, United 
States Army, then by Brigadier-General S. L. Faison, United States 
Army, who commanded it from the 1st of January, until the 1st of 
May, 1918. Brigadier-General L. D. Tyson, commanding the 59th 
Brigade, was placed in command of the Division on May 1, 1918, and 
took it to France and was in command until the 27th of May, 1918. On 
the arrival of the Division in France the command was taken over by 
Major-General George W. Read, United States Army, who commanded 
it until about the 15th of June, when he was relieved and placed in 
command of the 2nd American Corps in France. 

The Division was then commanded by Brigadier-General Faison until 
about’ the 18th of July, when Major-General E. M. Lewis, United 
States Army, succeeded to the command and he commanded it from 
that time until the return of the Division home in March, 1919. 


Strate Lirprary anp HistrortcaLt AssocraTIon 45 


It will thus be seen that the 30th Division had more commanding 
officers during its career than perhaps any other Division in the whole 
of the American Army. 

Brigadier-General Faison and Brigadier-General Tyson, both natives 
of North Carolina, were with the Division from the time it was formed 
in September, 1917, until it was mustered out. 

General Faison commanded the Division for a longer period during 
its training than any other General Officer, and to him great credit 
must be given for his untiring energy and zeal in bringing this Division 
up to its high state of efficiency, which it showed in the subsequent 
operations in which it was engaged. 

Of the ten American Divisions which arrived in the northern part 
of France in May and June, 1918, the 27th and 30th were selected to 
remain in Northern France, and were both attached to and placed in 
training with the British, their services being very greatly needed at 
the time on the depleted British front from Ypres south to Armen- 
teres. 

The British forces and morale at that time were at the lowest ebb 
perhaps during the whole war. The presence of these American Divi- 
sions greatly enhanced the morale of the British on this front and put 
new hope and new life into them. The Americans arrived just in time, 
for I believe if they had arrived 60 to 90 days later the war would have 
been won by the Germans. 

The days which these two Divisions spent in this area were very har- 
rowing ones, and especially so during the time they were in the front 
line trenches during the last two weeks in August. There was no 
sector on the whole British front, or perhaps on the entire front, which 
was more subjected to the enemy’s fire for years than was the imme- 
diate sector in which they were placed at that time. 

They suffered many casualties while holding these lines. 


The 27th Division consisted cf the 53rd and 54th Infantry Brigades, 
the 53rd Brigade containing the 105th and 106th Infantry Regiments, 
and the 105th Machine Gun Battalion. The 54th Brigade containing 
the 107th and 108th Infantry regiments and the 106th Machine Gun 
Battalion. The Division also had the 102nd Engineer Regiment, the 
104th Machine Gun Battalion and other special troops. The 52nd 
Field Artillery Brigade, which was the Artillery Brigade of the Divi- 
sion, was never with the Division, being in service elsewhere, and the 
Division was always supported in action by the British cr Australian 
Artillery. 


46 NinereentH ANNUAL Sxrssion 


These regiments of this Division had been formed by combining the 
various National Guard units of New York State that existed before 
the outbreak of the war. 

The 30th Division consisted cf the 59th and 60th Infantry Brigades, 
the 59th Brigade containing the 117th and the 118th Infantry Regi- 
ments and the 114th Machine Gun Battalion, the 60th Brigade con- 
taining the 119th and 120th Infantry Regiments and the 115th Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. The Division also had the 105th Engineer Regi- 
ment, the 113th Machine Gun Battalion and other special troops. The 
55th Field Artillery Brigade, which was the Artillery Brigade of the 
Division, was never with the Division in France, being in service with 
the American Expeditionary Forces in the south and on the American 
front. This Division was always supported by British and Australian 
Artillery. 

The 117th Infantry was the old 3rd Tennessee. 

The 118th Infantry was the old 1st South Carolina. 

The 119th Infantry was the old 2nd North Carolina, together with 
some of the old 1st North Carolina Infantry and about 1500 men from 
the old 2nd Tennessee Infantry, both of which were broken up at Camp 
Sevier, S. C. 

The 120th Infantry was the old 3rd North Carolina Infantry, 
together with a considerable number of the old 1st North Carolina 
Infantry, and about 500 officers and men of the old 2nd Tennessee 
Infantry. 

The 105th Engineers was made up largely of the old 1st North Caro- 
lina Infantry. 

These two Divisions were assigned, in June, 1918, to the Second 
United States Army Corps, and operated with this Corps thereafter 
during active service. This Corps was commanded throughout by 
Major-General George W. Read, United States Army. 

After about five weeks of preliminary training, and before the com- 
pletion of the training period which they had expected to enjoy in 
France, the two American Divisions were transferred to the Second 
British Army, under General Plumer, and sent to Belgium, the 27th 
being attached to the 19th British Corps and the 30th to the 2nd 
British Corps, and both assigned to the support positions known as 
the East and West Poperinghe Defense System, immediately in the 
rear of the Ypres and Dickebush Sectors in Belgium. 

The situation on this part of the front at the time, early in July, 
was extremely critical, as the powerful forces of the Army Group of 
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, which had already, in April, 
driven deeply through the British lines about Armentieres and cap- 


Strate Lirerary anp Historica AssocraTion 47 


tured the commanding eminence of Mount Kemmel, were daily ex- 
pected to begin another desperate drive for the capture of the Channel 
ports to the northwest, and the vitally important Bethune coal fields 
to the scuthwest. Should the Germans make a successful beginning 
of such a drive and get through the British front lines, the brunt of 
the attack would fall upon these partly trained American divisions. 

Fortunately, the attack never came, the enemy elected instead to 
open an offensive east and west of Reims and then, on July 18th at 
last definitely losing the initiative in the great counter attack of Mar- 
shal Foch along the Marne. 

But, while lying under the observation of Mount Kemmel and the 
enemy’s accurate artillery fire in July and early August, the American 
Divisions rapidly became veterans and ready for any work. After 
the middle of August they tock over front line sectors from the British 
divisions, the 30th Division taking the Canal Sector from the southern 
_ outskirts of Ypres to Voormezeele, and the 27th taking the Dickebush 
sector, from Voormezeele to a point northwest of Mount Kemmel. 

Owing to the gradual withdrawal of German divisions to meet the 
great Allied attacks further south, it became possible, on August 31st, 
for the Second British Army to begin a local offensive cperation which, 
in so far as the American divisions were concerned, resulted, on that 
and the following day, in the 30th Division advancing about 1,500 
yards, taking Lock No. 8 on the Ypres Canal, Lankhof Farm and the 
village of Voormezeele, while the 27th Division advanced about 2,000 
yards, occupying Vierstraadt Ridge, and the northern slopes of Mount 
Kemmel. 

I have mentioned the activities and training of these Divisions in 
this sector in order to show how deeply they had impressed themselves 
upon the British during these operations, and, for that reason they were 
withdrawn from the front line between September 3rd and 5th and 
sent to training areas further south, where they received instruction 
particularly in operating offensively with tanks, and about September 
23rd and 24th were assembled as the Second American Army Corps 
under General Rawlinson of the 4th British Army, and put into the 
sector fronting the Hindenburg Line about midway between Cambrai 
and St. Quentin at the point where it was said the German defenses 
were the strongest of any place on the entire German front, and which 
the Germans considered impregnable. 

The front now occupied by the British at that point was very 
nearly that) which they had held previous to the German attack of 
March 21, 1918, and from which they had been driven back nearly 
to Amiens. Starting in about August 1st to recover once more that 


48 NIneTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


devastated stretch of the valley of the Somme between its junction with 
the Ancre and St. Quentin, which had been first lost in 1914, regained 
in 1915, and then lost again in the spring of 1918, with true British 
determination they had pushed on, foot by foot, for nearly two months, 
against the most bitter opposition, until they were once more occu- 
pying all but the foremost of their old trenches before the Hindenburg 
Line between St. Quentin and Cambrai. 

The plans for the great offensive involving the Allied forces on every 
front! were now perfect and, as has been previously pointed out, the 
initial attack of Marshal Haig’s British Armies was to be made on 
September 27th, the day after the advance of the First American and 
Fourth French Armies on both sides of the Argonne. 

The British effort was to begin with an assault by the First and 
Third Armies on a 13 mile front before Cambrai, to be followed by 
an extension of the attack southward to St. Quentin by the Fourth 
British Army (of which the 27th and 30th Divisions composing the 
2nd American Corps were a part) and still south of. these by the First 
French Army. When its turn came General Rawlinson’s Fourth Army 
was to go in on a front of 12 miles, from Holnon north to Vendheuille, 
with the Ninth British Corps on the right, the second American Corps 
in the center, supported by the Australian Corps under General Monash, 
and the Third British Corps on the left. 

The 27th and 30th American Divisions relieved the 18th and 75th 
British Divisions in the front line, opposite Bony and Bellicourt, on 
the night of September 24th and 23rd, 1918, respectively. 

The attack which they were to make had been planned by the Aus- 
tralian Corps which had been fighting since August Sth and had 
pushed the Germans back from Villers Bretonneux to the Hindenburg 
Line, and the 3rd and 5th Australian Divisions were to support the 
Americans closely and relieve them when the first objectives had 
been obtained. 

During this time it was necessary to straighten out the American 
Corps line which was in front of the Hindenburg Line. If you will 
observe the accompanying map you will see that there is ia broken line 
running “A.B.C.D.E.” This was a line which was actually oceupied 
by the 27th and 30th Divisions when they were first put into the line 
in front of the Hindenburg System. 

You will, also, observe the broken line “X.Y.Z.” and the straight 
line above it “U.V.W.” The broken line is the line that it was in- 
tended the troops should occupy on the morning of the day when the 
attack was to be made, called the Jumping Off Line, and the straight 


Srate Lirerary anp Historica Association 49 


line is the line which was to be what is known as the Barrage Line, 
that is to say, the line where the shrapnel and shells should fall at 
the zero hour. 

It was considered by the Australian General who had planned this 
attack, that these curved lines “A.B.C.D.E.” occupied by the 30th 
Division and the 27th Division, should be straightened out by being 
pushed forward to the broken line “X.Y.Z.” which was to be the 
Jumping Off Line, and that this was to be done before the day of 
the final attack. To this end an attack was ordered to be made by the 
troops occupying the front line indicated by the line “A.B.C.D.E.” 
on the morning of the 27th, after bombardment had been laid on the 
territory between the bent line and the dotted line. 

It is perhaps necessary to say that in battles of this war the greatest 
degree of accuracy was required in every attack. The most minute 
and detailed crders were given so every single thing that could be 
thought of before, and provided for, was thought out and issued in the 
form of orders, down to the very lowest ranks, and everything was 
explained to the officers and men, so there would be no confusion when 
the battle was on. 

The location and destination of each unit, from the Corps Head- 
quarters down to Regiments and Battalions, were set down on maps so, 
with map and compass, each officer would know exactly where he and his 
men were expected to go. 

In this instance the sectors of the Divisions were laid out on maps 
and by consulting the map it will be seen that the 30th was on the 
right and the 27th on the left. The 30th had the sector bounded by 
the lines “B.O.F.” on the right and “G.H.” on the left, and the 27th had 
its sector bounded by the lines “G.H.” on the right and “W.K.” on the 
left. 

The final battle plans were announced for the great attack which was 
to take place on the 29th of September. 

It was provided in this plan of battle that the 27th and the 30th 
Divisions, constituting the 2nd American Corps, should attack on the 
morning of the 29th at 5.50 A. M., the zero hour, and drive forward 
and break the Hindenburg Line and penetrate and go forward to Bony 
and Guoy and to Bellicourt and Nauroy, the 30th Division to go for- 
ward and capture Bellicourt and Nauroy and penetrate to the dotted 
line shown on the map “M.N.” and the 27th was to drive forward 
and go through the towns of Bony and Guoy to the dotted line “L.M.,” 
the dotted line “L.M.N.” being the objective cf the two Divisions. 

After the attack had been launched and the lines had been broken 
and the objectives had been taken by these two Divisions, the Australian 

4 


50 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION . 


Corps was to move forward and go through the American Divisions 
to points further to the east, the 3rd Australian Corps to advance and 
go through the 27th Division to an objective beyond that laid out for 
the 27th Division, and the 5th Australian Division to advance and go 
through the 30th Division to an objective further east. The 9th British 
Corps was to attack on the right of the 30th Division and the 38rd 
British Corps to attack on the left of the 27th. 

It was further provided in the Corps orders that there should be 
an intense bombardment of the positions in front of the 27th and 30th 
American Divisions, beginning on the 27th of September, and that 
this bombardment should last for 60 hours and should be composed 
of regular shells and a certain number of gas and smoke shells. This 
bombardment was intended to break down the defenses of the Hinden- 
burg System which were found at this point, and to make it possible 
for the troops to go through, and to drive the Germans out of Belli- 
court, Nauroy, Bony and Gucy. 

The portion of the Hindenburg Line which these two American 
Divisions were to attack was about 7,500 yards long, the front of the 
27th being about 4,000 yards and that of the 30th about 3,750 yards. 
The front was determined largely by the Scheldt or St. Quentin Canal, 
and it was perhaps more formidable than any other portion of the 
Hindenburg Line of like extent. In fact it has been repeatedly stated 
{that there was no place in the Hindenburg Line that was as strong 
or that could be made as strong. The peculiar characteristics which 
gave this position its great strength have been explained by Field 
Marshal Haig in such apt words, and coming from such high authority, 
I think I can do no better than quote them. 

This is contained in a report made by Field Marshal Haig on 
December 18, 1918, and is as follows: 

“Between St. Quentin and the village of Bantouzelle the principal 
defenses of the Hindenburg System lie sometimes to the west but more 
generally to the east of the Scheldt or St. Quentin Canal. The Canal 
itself does not seem to have been organized as the enemy’s main line 
of resistance, but rather as an integral part of a deep defensive system, 
the outstanding characteristics of which was the skill with which it 
was sited so as to deny us effective artillery positions from which to 
attack it. The chief role of the canal was that of offering cover to 
resting troops and to the garrisons of the main defensive trench during 
a bombardment. To this end the canal lent itself admirably, and the 
fullest! use was made by the enemy of its possibilities. 

“The general configuration of the ground through which this sector 
of the canal runs produces deep cuttings of a depth in places of 60 


Srare Lirprary anp Historitcat AssocraTion 51 


feet, while between Bellicourt and the neighborhocd of Bantouzelle the 
canal passes through the tunnel for a distance of 6,000 yards. In the 
sides of the cuttings the enemy had constructed numerous tunnel dug- 
outs and concrete shelters. Along the top edge of them he had con- 
cealed numerous concrete or armored machine gun emplacements. 

“The tunnel itself was used to provide living accommodations for 
troops and was connected by shafts with the trenches above. South 
of Bellicourt the canal cut in gradually, and became shallow, until at 
Bellenglise it lies almost at the ground level. South of Bellenglise the 
canal is dry. 

“On the west side of the Canal, south of Bellicourt, two thoroughly 
organized and extremely heavily wired lines of continuous trenches 
run roughly parallel to the canal, at average distances from it of 2,000 
and 1,000 yards respectively. Except in the tunnel sector the double 
line of trenches, known as the Hindenburg Line proper, lies immedi- 
ately east of the canal and is connected up by numerous communication 
trenches with the trench line west! of it. 

“Besides these main features, numerous other trench lines, switch 
trenches, and communication trenches, for the most part heavily wired, 
had been constructed at various points to meet! local weaknesses, or take 
advantage of the local lines of fire. 

“At a distance of about 4,000 yards behind the most eastwardly of 
these trench lines lies a double row of trenches known as the Beaurevoir- 
Fonsommes line, very thoroughly wired and holding numerous concrete 
shelters and machine gun emplacements. The whole series of defenses, 
with the numerous defended villages contained in it, formed a belt of 
country varying from 7,000 to 10,000 yards in depth, organized by the 
employment of every available means into the most powerful system, 
well meriting the great reputation attached to it.” 

Another description of this system, which I consider a little more 
detailed in some respects, than that of General Haig, was made by our 
own Division Commander, General E. M. Lewis, in his report on this 
battle, and I make extract’: 

“The canal and tunnel together are of particular interest as an 
obstacle. The tunnel itself could provide absolutely safe shelter for a 
division, while many underground tunnels connect it with the various 
trench systems, thus permitting reinforcements at any time of any por- 
tion of the trench system. A long spoil bank or heap runs above ground 
upon the line of the tunnel which contained a series of dugouts and 
numerous concrete machine gun emplacements. The Canal, after leav- 
ing the tunnel, has banks from 75 to 100 feet high, the water being 


52 Nuinereento Annuat Szssron 


from 5 to 6 feet deep. The western bank furnished emplacements for 
numerous machine guns and minenwerfers. 

“Tn addition to the canal and tunnel this portion of the Hindenburg 
Line included a system of trenches, generally three, interlocked by 
communication and approach trenches placed at frequent intervals. 
Wide belts of strong German wire protected the entire system, even the 
communication trenches being heavily wired; forward belts were fre- 
quently in the form of deep triangles 50 to 150 yards in depth. Along 
the line of the tunnel these communication trenches led back into 
the tunnel exits while the entire front line system was provided with 
concrete dugouts at 40 to 60 yard intervals. 

“The outpost line was also strongly fortified by trenches and wire, 
particularly at Bergy Wood, Sentinel Ridge and Quarry Ravine. In 
the rear of the main Hindenburg Line was the Le Oatelet-Nauroy 
trench system also wired and well organized. This trench system and 
the town of Nauroy were included in the objectives of the attack. 

“It is believed that there are few positions so well adapted for ma- 
chine gun defense as the sector just described. The enemy had taken 
full advantage of the natural features of the ground, and during his 
four years occupancy had improved them to such a degree as to render 
the position apparently impregnable to a frontal attack.” 

It was upon the center of these tremendous positions that the 27th 
and 30th American Divisions were now to be called upon to exert their 
strength. They were splendidly supported by the Divisional Artillery 
of the five Australian Divisions, totaling 438 guns, largely 4.2 inch © 
howitzers; by the Third British Air Squadron and by parts of the 
3rd and 5th British Tank Brigades. There was included in the sector of 
the 27th Division the 301st American Tank Battalion, the only Ameri- 
can heavy tank unit on the western front, and by other tactical units 
of British troops, bringing the total tactical British troops up to over 
22,000, in addition to the two Australian Infantry Divisions. The 
number of American troops engaged was about 40,000, about 20,000 
for each division. 

Opposite the 30th Division the enemy’s line was held by the 85th 
Reserve Division and the 185th Division of the German army, while 
the 27th appears to have been opposed by portions of these divisions 
as well as by parts of the 2nd Guard, 233rd, 54th, and 121st Divisions. 

Before being relieved the 18th and 75th British Divisions had been 
unable to clean up all of the old British outposts positions which had 
been designated in the plans as the jumping off line of the main attack. 
This was especially true of the line in front of the 27th. 


Sratr Lirrrary anp HistorrcaLt AssocraTion 53} 


On the morning of the 27th of September, under cover of a terrific 
bombardment provided for in the Corps Orders the 106th Infantry 
of the 27th Division and the 118th Infantry of the 30th Division 
attacked the enemy strong points in the immediate front of each Divi- 
sion. This was done for the purpose of straightening out the line so 
as to enable each Division to be up on the Jumping Off Line on the 
29th, the day fixed for the great attack. The 106th Infantry of the 
27th Division failed to capture the strong points in front of it and 
at night it was still 1,000 yards behind the line it should have been 
on, and when it was relieved by the 54th Infantry Brigade of the 
27th it had advanced but little and the Germans were making vigorous 
resistance to its advance. 

On the other hand, the 118th Infantry of the 30th succeeded in 
advancing its line and successfully occupied the line designated as its 
objective and was firmly holding this line when it was relieved by the 
60th Brigade of the 30th Division on the night of the 27th-28th Sep- 
tember. 

The 27th Division was unable to advance to the jumping off line 
designated by the morning of the 29th and was in some places as much 
as 1,000 yards in the rear of the barrage line, not having been able 
to take three strong points, the Knoll, Guillemont Farm and Quenne- 
mont Farm. 

The questicn of changing the barrage line for this Division was 
raised, but decided in the negative, the Brigade designated to make the 
attack having reported at 6 P. M. on the 28th that it expected to be 
within 400 yards of the barrage line, or possibly even on the intended 
start line, before the hour of attack. 

But the 30th, by the successful advance of its 118th Infantry, was 
on its jumping off line which was now occupied by the 60th Brigade. 

In spite of the fact that the 27th had not been able to advance to 
the line designated, at the zero hour, 5.50 o’clock on the morning of 
the 29th, in the midst of a heavy fog, under an intense barrage of high 
explosive, gas and smoke shells, from 438 guns, and the concentrated 
fire of the massed machine guns of the two divisions, and assisted by 74 
heavy tanks, the attack was made and our troops started up the long, 
open slopes toward the German trenches blazing with shells and ma- 
chine guns, and pressed on to the red brick ruins of Bellicourt and Bony 
on the tunnel ridge. 

The 30th Division with the 60th Brigade, Brigadier-General Faison 
commanding, in the front line, and the 59th Brigade, Brigadier-General 
Tyson commanding, in close support, went forward with the 120th 
Infantry commanded by Col. S. W. Minor on the right and the 119th 


54. Nuverrento ANNUAL Szsston 


Infantry, commanded by Col. J. Van B. Metz on the left, each regiment 
with two battalions in the front line and one in support, the support 
battalions having the definite mission of mopping up the Hindenburg 
trenches, the Canal, the tunnel and the village of Bellicourt. 

The 117th Infantry, commanded by Col. C. F. Spence, followed in 
close support’ behind the 120th, and deployed, facing southeast after 
crossing the tunnel in order to attack the Hindenburg Line in flank 
east of the canal, and then push on south and assist the progress of 
the 46th British Division on the right by enfilading the enemy’s posi- 
tions along the canal, cutting towards Bellenglise, and to protect the 
deployment of the 5th Australian Division which was to relieve the 
30th American Division immediately after the latter had gained its 
objectives. 

Company H of the 117th Infantry, with one Company of the 113th 
Machine Gun Battalion, was required to attack to the right of the 
120th. Infantry in front of and to the open canal, a strip of ground 
with a frontage of about 500 yards which lay between the right of the 
120th Infantry and the 46th British Division on the right. 

The 118th Infantry commanded by Col. Orwin R. Wolfe, U. S. 
Army, was placed in Divisional Reserve. 

The 27th Division went in with the 108th Infantry on the right and 
the 107th Infantry on the left, two battalions of each regiment in the 
front line and one in support. 

One battalion of the 106th Infantry followed the 107th to assist in 
mopping up the Hindenburg trenches, the canal tunnel, and its north 
entrance, while the 105th Infantry, following still further behind, was 
to face to the north after crossing the Canal tunnel and protect the 
left flank of the Corps in that direction, as the 117th Infantry was to 
do at the other end of the tunnel. Two battalions of the 106th In- 
fantry, which had suffered considerably in the preliminary attack on 
September 27th formed the Divisional reserve. 

The fog which was very dense that morning was at once a help and 
a hindrance. It served to conceal the attacking troops from the enemy 
and prevented accurate machine gun or artillery fire. Had the weather 
been clear it is impossible to see how hardly a man could have gotten 
across and through the vast mass of wire entanglements and trench 
defenses. The wire was something terrific, being from 30 to 40 
feet thick in front! of the trenches and the bombardment had only 
partially destroyed it. 

The tanks were, without doubt, of great assistance in breaking the 
wire down and thus opening a way for the men to get through. 


4 


a es ee 


Srate Lirerary anp HistoricaL AssocrATION 55 


On the other hand the units lost direction, the fog and smoke being 
so thick it was impossible to see more than a few feet away, and it 
was impossible to keep direction except with the compass and it was 
difficult even to see the needle of the compass, so dense was the fog. 

Therefore, the men advanced much more slowly than they otherwise 
would. They were broken up into groups without officers always present 
and very many of them were practically lost and some were leaderless 
on the battlefield. It thus became necessary for the men to move for- 
ward, in a great many instances, under their own initiative, which 
they did with great determinaticn and gallantry. 

Owing to these conditions doubtless many machine gun nests were 
passed and other strong points occupied by the enemy were not seen 
and destroyed, as they would have been had they been observed. 

Many of these places appear to have been connected with the canal 
tunnel by the lateral passages previously mentioned, and to have been 
heavily reinforced through these passages, after the first waves of the 
attack had gone by. Consequently, a little later when the mopping up 
and support units arrived and the fog had cleared up the men, espe- 
cially in the 27th Division, met a resistance stronger and more effective 
than had been encountered by the troops in the advance. 

The front of the 30th Division went forward, on the whole, rapidly, 
and without as great losses as it had been expecting. 

Owing to the obscurity and loss of liaison, the advance and the 
fighting were soon being carried on chiefly by small groups of men. 
The men accomplished their purpose, crossing the three trench lines 
of the Hindenburg System, storming and taking the town of Bellicourt, 
and later reaching and conquering the Division objective beyond 
Nauroy. 

These places were taken and occupied by the 120th Infantry, and 
by this time that regiment which had pushed forward with great dash 
and gallantry and success had advanced a distance of some 4,200 yards 
from its jumping off trenches of that morning and had pierced all but 
the last of the three German trench systems, being the first regiment 
to pass through the Hindenburg Line. 

Company H of the 117th Infantry assisted by a Company of the 
113th Machine Gun Battalion, drove forward to the canal and took 
its objective, and then joined its regiment. 

The 117th Infantry followed in close support of the 120th Infantry, 
crossed the tunnel near the mouth of the canal south of Bellicourt, as 
planned, faced and deployed to the right, and attacked the Hinden- 


56 NinetsentH ANNUAL SEssion 


burg Line on the east side of the canal, taking and capturing all before 
it, and advanced south from the mouth of the canal about 2,000 yards 
and reached its objective. 

This regiment assisted greatly in mopping up, and killed and eap- 
tured many Germans who had been passed over by the 120th in its 
advance. 

This regiment, also, accomplished its purpose in aiding the 46th 
British Division on the right to advance to its objective, and protected 
the flanks of the 5th Australian Division when it took over the front 
line from the 120th. This 46th British Division did brilliant work in 
crossing the steep banks of the canal and taking Bellenglise. 

The 119th Infantry was unable to get as far as the 120th, but with 
the greatest determination and courage it broke through the Hinden- 
burg Line and its right wing got to its objective though it was under 
the necessity of refusing its flank to the canal tunnel ridge in order to 
maintain contact with the 27th Division which had not advanced 
nearly so far, and seemed unable to clear the Germans from its ter- 
ritory. In these positions the Australians passed through the lines and 
relieved the 30th Division on the afternoon of September 29th. 

The 30th Division had experienced difficulty in mopping up, but 
the work was systematically laid out and fully carried out, and all 
Germans in its sector killed or captured. 

The 120th Infantry mopped up Bellicourt, and all of the sector of 
the 30th Division south and west of Bellicourt, including Bellicourt 
itself, was firmly in the hands of that Division by 2 o’clock P. M. 

The 119th Infantry continued to have trouble, however, during the 
whole of the day on its left flank from the sector of the 27th Division 
from machine gun fire, and a battalion of the 117th Infantry was sent 
to its support early in the afternoon, and a battalion of the 118th 
Infantry was also sent to its support during the late afternoon and 
that battalion remained in the Le Catelet-Nauroy trenches during the 
night of the 29th and suffered many casualties. 

Owing to the fact that the 27th Division was about 1,000 yards in 
rear of the jumping cff line, and as a great many Germans remained 
in the territory between its front line and the line designated as the 
jumping off line the 27th suffered more than the 30th from the start. 

It was so far behind the jumping off line that it did not get the 
benefit of the barrage which was falling on a line at least 1,000 yards 
in front of it. 

This was most unfortunate and made it very difficult for this Divi- 
sion to advance except with heavy losses. 


Sratre Lirprary anp HistoricaL AssocraTIon 5 


The barrage left the Division in a pocket full of the enemy and they 
were obliged to deploy and engage with all their energy in mopping 
up the machine gun nests and tunnel entrances, from which came up 
during the fighting, it was estimated, as many as two German Divisions. 

The following is quoted from an official statement made by the 
War Department within the last few days, as reported in the New 
York Times, of November 9, 1919: 

“Tn the 27th Division the 54th Infantry Brigade made the attack 
under the same difficulties on account of fog and smoke. It also 
received machine gun fire in enfilade from the direction of Vendhuile, 
outside its sector to the left. Part of the right regiment, the 108th, 
by a detour to the south avoided Quennemont Farm and reached the 
Hindenburg Line south of Bony. Groups from all attacking battalions 
succeeded in penetrating between the strong points and reaching the 
‘Hindenburg Line, but by dusk only the extreme right retained its 
footing in that lime. Here the Division was relieved by Australians 
and remained in support; numerous groups, however, aggregating 
1,000 men, remained with the Australians and assisted them in cleaning 
up the Hindenburg Line on the right, taking it throughout the rest 
of the sector and occupying part of the village of Bony.” 

It took the Australians four days of hard fighting to finish the reduc- 
tion of the Hindenburg works and the canal tunnel in the sector 
assigned to the 27th American Division and to occupy securely Le 
Catelet and Guoy in the same sector. 

The 27th Division had fought with great determination and gallantry 
and while it had not accomplished its entire object in reaching and 
maintaining its objective on the 29th, nor had it broken fully through 
the Hindenburg Line, it had done splendid work in going so far under 
great difficulties, and had earned for itself great and lasting renown. By 
’ occupying the enemy on its front it had greatly aided the 30th Division 
on its right to accomplish its task which was to break the Hindenburg 
Line, and to reach and maintain its objectives. 

I have not the actual losses of this Division but they were heavy. 
The number of prisoners captured was 1,530. 

During the night of the 29th the regiments of the 30th Division 
remained on the battlefield, either upon their objectives or assembled 
im areas previously designated. 

It had been a great and glorious day for the 30th Division. No 
troops ever fought more gallantly nor with greater determination to 
win at any cost. It had accomplished all that it had set out to do, 
and had gained imperishable glory and renown by breaking the sup- 


58 NinererentH ANNUAL SESSION 


posedly impregnable Hindenburg Line, at what was believed to be its 
strongest point. While the casualties in the Division were heavy, the 
prisoners captured were 47 officers and 1,434 men. 

The 27th and the 30th had supplemented each other in this great 
battle. Neither could have accomplished what it did without the other. 
It was an American Corps operation and must always be considered as 
such. There is glory enough for all and the 30th Division is glad to 
share its glory with the 27th with whom it served so long, so pleasantly, 
and so successfully, on the Belgian front, as well as on the Somme 
front, and for whose officers and men it has the deepest respect and 
admiration. 

It was a singular coincidence that these two divisions had been 
placed beside each other during the whole of the war, had traimed in 
the United States within a short distance of each other, had been put 
in the same Corps in France, and had there fought together with such 
distinguished success and good feeling. 

One of these Divisions being from the North and the other from 
the South, fighting in a foreign land under the Stars and Stripes, it 
can be truly said that, while smashing the Hindenburg Line together 
they had smashed another great line, viz.: Mason’s and Dixon’s Line. 

The splendid way in which these two American Divisions had borne 
themselves had proved a great surprise and inspiration to the British. 
The British expected a great deal of the Americans but they were very 
dubious about their ability to break through the Hindenburg Line at 
this point. It was an awful task to give any troops, and especially 
new and practically untried troops, in such a great operation. 

When we consider the magnitude of the risk involved and the con- 
sequences that might have followed if we had failed, I feel that the 
placing of these American troops there at that time to accomplish 
this great feat was one of the highest compliments ever paid American 
troops. But, it must be admitted that they nobly justified this con- 
fidence. 

The Australians were most encouraging and had all confidence in 
our troops accomplishing the task set out for us. 

As for our men, and I speak especially for the 30th Division, as I 
am not so familiar with the 27th, although I have no doubt the same 
can be said of them—they were wonderful. It would have been natural 
to expect a great deal of trepidation and excitement in going into such 
a battle, but, strange and even marvelous as it may seem, they were 
as calm and cool as any veterans could have been. 


Srarrm Lirerary anp Historicat AssocraTion 59 


During the night of the 28th-29th of September our troops were 
under constant shell fire from the Germans but, notwithstanding that, 
every preparation was made and the units were marched to their places 
early in the morning exactly as ordered. 

When the barrage fell at 5.50 A.M., September 29th, every man 
required to be there was upon the tape line and they moved off in as 
good order as the fog and smoke permitted. They knew it was the 
most momentous and the most fearful day in their lives and no one 
had much idea whether there was any hope of returning, but they do 
not seem to have thought of anything but going forward and ever for- 
ward, and doing their duty and crushing the Germans. 

And they did go forward and continued to go forward, under as trying 
conditions as men ever fought. They could not see, they were not sure 
where they were going, they could form no idea of what they were 
going into, they were surrounded with barbed wire, that was almost 
impenetrable, and the awful roar of 438 guns from their own side and 
perhaps as many more from the Germans, was constantly in their ears. 
Shells and shrapnel were bursting everywhere and machine guns were 
playing upon them from innumerable points, men were being killed 
and wounded on all sides, and yet on they went, killing and being 
killed, ever pressing on until finally they had broken through that 
dread, that awful Hindenburg Line, behind: which the Germans had 
been resting safely, and from which no other troops, even the veterans 
of Great Britain, France, Canada and Australia, had been able to drive 
them for four long and terrible years. 

The German officers captured were in despair. They said: “There 
are no more trenches or fortified places between you and the Rhine— 
the war is lost for us.” 

The impossible had been accomplished. The impregnable Hinden- 
burg Line had been broken, and another brilliant page had been added 
to the annals of the American Army. 

The following is an extract from a letter of Marshal Haig to the 
General commanding the 2nd American Corps, dated November 16, 
1918: 

“Qn the 29th of September you took part with distinction in the 
great and critical attack which shattered the enemy’s resistance in the 
Hindenburg Line and opened the road to final victory, and the work 
of the 30th and 27th American Divisions, who on that day took Belli- 
eourt and Nauroy and so gallantly sustained the desperate struggle 
for Bony, will rank with the highest achievements of this war. They 
will always be remembered by the British as the Divisions that fought 
beside them.” 


60 NineterentH ANNUAL SESSION 


General Pershing commended General Lewis, commanding the 30th 
Division, after this battle as follows: 

“On September 29th the 30th Division broke through both the Hin- 
denburg Line and the Le Catelet-Nauroy lines, capturing Bellicourt 
and Nauroy, an operation on which all subsequent operations of the 
Fourth British Army (with whom it was operating) depended. From 
October 7th to October 20th the 30th Division advanced 23 kilometers 
in a continuous series of attacks, capturing 2,352 of the enemy. Bran- 
court, Premont, Busigny, St. Bernin, St. Souplet and Vaux Andigny 
are names which will live in the memories of those who fought in the 
30th Division, but its special glory always will be the honor won by 
breaking the Hindenburg Line on September 29th. Such a record is 
one of which we are all proud.” 

As there has been some little controversy as to which Division was 
first through the Hindenburg Linc, I am very glad to be able to state 
that the War Department has, during the last few days, issued an 
official statement giving a brief review of the operations of the two 
divisions, which effectively answers that question. 

I quote from the New York Herald of Sunday, November 9, 1919, 
as follows: 

“Qlearing up any misunderstanding that may exist as to whether 
the 27th or the 30th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces 
was first to break the boasted impregnable Hindenburg Line, the War 
Department Chief of Staff yesterday issued a statement on the opera- 
tions of the Second Corps—the 27th and 30th Divisions—from Sep- 
tember 23 to 30, 1918, when the great German defenses were smashed 
east of Peronne. Both Divisions sent units through on the morning 
of the 29th, but the 30th got its men through earlier than did the — 
Q7th.” 

In conclusion, I wish to say that the people, especially of North 
Carolina; South Carolina, and Tennessee, and New York, whence the 
great majority of the men in these two Divisions came, should never 
forget and should be forever proud of this remarkable victory which 
their brave sons won on that great day. 


A North Carolinian at the Court of St. James During 
the World War 


By Anevus Witton McLean 


Walter Hines Page was born on August 15, 1855, in the village of 
Cary, near Raleigh, N. C. 

In 1876 Mr. Page graduated from Randolph-Macon College, and in 
the fall of the same year entered upon graduate study at Johns Hopkins 
University, being one of the first twenty Fellows at that Institution 
and having won a Fellowship in Greek under Dr. Basil L. Gildersleeve. 

After completing his studies at Johns Hopkins Mr. Page went to 
Louisville, where he taught until 1880, when he became editor of the 
St. Joseph (Missouri) Daily Gazette. In 1881 he returned to North 
Carolina and founded, in 1882, the Raleigh Chronicle. He soon sold 
his holdings to young Josephus Daniels, who was destined to become the 
Secretary of the Navy in the same Administration that sent Walter 
Hines Page to the Court of St. James. 

Mr. Page’s next venture was as a student of sociological problems 
in the South. He organized the first newspaper syndicate south of 
the Mason and Dixon Line, toured the South in search of material, and 
published many of his interviews in the Boston Post, the Springfield 
Republican, and the New York World, where they attracted much 
attention. 

From 1883-87 Mr. Page was on the staff of the New York EHvening 
Post, accepting upon his resignation in that year the position of Mana- 
ger of the Forum, and later, in 1890, he became editor of that maga- 
zine, continuing in that position until 1895, when he became literary 
adviser to the Houghton Mifflin Company. From 1896 to 1899 Mr. 
Page was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, resigning to become founder 
and editor of the World’s Work, and a member of the firm of Double- 
day Page & Co. 

Walter Hines Page was a son of the South. Born and reared to 
early manhood in North Carolina, he attended a Southern College and 
later a University situated in a city midway between the North and 
South, but typically Southern in the genius of its people and insti- 
tutions. 

Mr. Page’s early days were spent in an era of sacrifice and serious- 
ness which swept over a land smitten by civil war and struggling back 
into the field of national consciousness. His youth saw the grim 
horror of reconstruction. This experience left its impress upon the 


62 NInETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


man, for(it may be truthfully said that Walter Hines Page spent his 
life in heroic endeavor to point out to the South where its weaknesses - 
lay, and, by suggestion, by friendly advice, and untiring effort to point 
out its larger possibilities to the nation) 

Most of Mr. Page’s collected writings relate to the South, manifesting 
certain qualities that were distinctively Southern. His was a continuous 
interest in Southern development. However much his alert and recep- 
tive mind may have assimilated from his early experiences in the West, 
or from life in New England, or from his larger outlook upon the 
affairs of his time, there was ever recurrence to the land of his birth. 

Because of some of his earlier writings, Mr. Page was portrayed 
(by those who did not know his real purpose) 'as one who was un- 
mindful of the traditions of the land of his birth. They charged him 
with a lack of sympathy for the South and a lack of reverence for her 
sacred past. But he became a vital leader in every progressive move- 
ment for the upbuilding of the South. 

Mr. Page had not forgotten the traditions of the South, therefore 
he fought hard and earnestly that out-worn traditions might not fetter: 
his cherished land with the shackles of a buried past. He was not out 
of sympathy with the land of his birth, but he was out of sympathy 
with a sentimentalism which threatened the progress and the future 
of those he loved. (He attacked with fearless determination all that 
tended to halt the onward surge of progress. Mr. Page’s services to his 
native section were direct and practical. He played a leading role in 
the educational development of the South. He directed into proper 
channels large sums of money, and won by his friendly co-operation 
and support the lasting friendship of many Southern educators. He 
was a member of the General Education Board, of the Southern Edu- 
cation Board, and of the Rockefeller Commission. He was a member 
of the Country Life Commission and an active leader in the Co-opera- | 
tive Farm Demonstration Work, inaugurated by the late Dr. Seaman 
A. Knapp, in whose opinion Mr. Page did more than any man of his 
generation to promote the welfare of the South. He was influenced by 
no other motive than the ardent desire to serve faithfully not only the 
land of his forebears but his country as a whole) 

Mr. Page was born with a peculiar sense of social duty. All his 
historical, descriptive, and essay work reflected some economic or social 
or scientific ideal which he was trying to expound to his contemporaries. 
He strove earnestly to abolish ignorance and disease, and to promote 
community effort and social organization. ‘The passion for service 
ran through his life like a silver thread. Mr. Page’s mind was focussed 


Srare Lirerary anp Historica AssocraTION 63 


toward the future, and every hindrance stirred him with impatience. 
He was swept with the passion to see the States of the South go for- 
ward to a great destiny. Mr. Page loved the South. 

Mr. Page possessed the charm and power of writing and speaking 
attractively and effectively. One of his colleagues has said that his 
letters are masterpieces of keen analysis. His weekly reports to his 
friend and superior, Woodrow Wilson, constitute a record of facts by 
an accurate observer, and, in the light of subsequent events, they indi- 
cate a marvelous gift of prescience in correctly foreseeing future events 
and results. 

In his public addresses there was none of the guarded stiffness of 
_ expression which is supposed to characterize the professional diplomat. 
They were replete with wise thought, happy in phrase, often touched 
with humor, always genial and magnetic. They were constantly full 
of interest and inspiration, and eloquent in their earnestness. They 
made a profound impression upon all who heard them. Mr. Page 
spoke in many British cities and on many momentous occasions. He 
was regarded as one of the most impressive speakers in Great Britain. 
Though not endowed with the golden personality of Choate nor with 
the supreme literary gifts of Lowell, nor with the fortune of Reid, 
Ambassador Page was a better rounded and a more representative 
American than any of them. In the long and distinguished line of 
Ministers and Ambassadors who have represented our country at the 
premier post of American diplomacy, none played a more conspicuous 
and useful part than Walter Hines Page. Nor had any of his prede- 


- eessors so difficult a situation to deal with. 


To his diplomatic post he carried a preparation and equipment 
essential to the career of a successful Ambassador which few suspected 
he possessed. Difficult as are the duties of an Ambassador under ordi- 
nary circumstances, those which confronted Ambassador Page were such 
as to tax the keenest mind and the strongest frame. Mr. Page unex- 
pectedly found himself hurled into a diplomatic post and within a year 
in a maelstrom of international politics. Yet he never made a false 
step. He possessed a matured philosophy and a ripened experience of 
life, which admirably fitted him for the great work upon which he 
entered. 

One of the functions of an ambassador is to interpret, to the nation 
to which he is accredited, the people of his own land. For this Walter 
Hines Page was eminently qualified by his extensive knowledge of 
America. He knew the South because the South was the land of his 
birth. He knew the West for it was there he had gone as a journalist, 
and, endowed as he was with a highly developed power of observation 


64. NineteENtH ANNUAL SESSION 


and interpretation he was well qualified to know the West. He knew 
the North and the East, for in the North and the East he had done 
his great work. He therefore knew America. He knew America geo- 
graphically; he knew America politically; he knew American insti- 
tutions, American life, American aspirations—and, knowing America, 
he was able to interpret America accurately to the people of Great 
Britain. 

One of the first problems to confront Ambassador Page after he had 
assumed his post was that of the Panama Canal Tolls. It was a 
matter calling for infinite tact and diplomacy, as well as for honesty 
and candor. Party feeling ran high both in America and Great Britain, 
and every expression of the Ambassador was most carefully scrutinized. 

Under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty the British Government protested 
against the decision of the United States to exempt its coastwise traflic 
from the payment of tolls, declaring that exemption to be a violation 
of the neutrality treaty. The American Government had refused the 
request of Great Britain to submit the matter to the Hague, and 
President Taft just before leaving office proposed to submit it to the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

The matter of the Panama Canal Tolls was one of the first prob- 
lems, therefore, to confront the Wilson Administration. In an address 
on the occasion of the Fifth Annual Convention of the Southern Com- 
mercial Congress held at Mobile on October 27, 1913, in referring to 
the whole matter of Central and South America and their relations 
with the United States, President Wilson said: “States that are obliged 
to grant concessions to foreign capitalists are in the condition in which 
foreign interests are apt to dominate their domestic affairs, a condition 
always dangerous and apt to become intolerable.” 

The President had explained how, by the opening of the Panama 
Canal, the Latin American States had come on the main lines of com- 
merce, and that they were thus very much nearer to the United States. 
Continuing, he said: “What these States are going to see, therefore, 
is emancipation from subordination to foreign enterprise.” 

As a result of President’s Wilson speech serious apprehensions regard- 
ing the Monroe doctrine became widespread in financial circles in Eng- 
land. In the opinion of British bankers the President had given a new 
version to the Monroe Doctrine, and had outlined a new policy of the 
United States respecting foreign investments in Central and South 
American countries. 

To the British this address of the new President appeared to be a 
criticism of England, and of Europe in general, for the policy of 
obtaining or seeking to obtain concessions to make loans in Central and 


Srate Lirprary anp Histrorrcan AssocraTIoN 65 


South American countries, and an intimation that by these measures 
Europe. sought to obtain political control of a part of the American 
continent. They regarded it as a message having as its aim the restric- 
tion to American bankers of the whole American field of investment. 
On the occasion of an address at a dinner of the Association of Cham- 
bers of Commerce on the evening of Wednesday, March 12, 1914, Am- 
bassador Page referred to the President’s speech of the fall preceding. 
As soon as this address was published in the United States, Senator 
Chamberlain, of Oregon, introduced a resolution in the Senate to inves- 
tigate the Ambassador’s reference to the Monroe Doctrine and the 
Panama Canal Tolls. As a result Mr. Page submitted to Mr. Bryan 
the text of the ten-minute speech as he remembered it. Concerning 
the Monroe Doctrine Mr. Page had said: 


“The Monroe Doctrine meant this when it was first formulated: The 
United States would object to any European Government taking more land 
in the New World. In those days the only way a foreign government could 
gain land was literally to ge and take it. Now we have more refined methods 
of exploitation—there are other ways to take it. The United States would 
prefer that no European powers should gain more territory in the New 
World.” 


Concerning the Panama Canal Mr. Page had said: 


“T will not say that we constructed the Panama Canal even for you. We 
built it for reasons of our own. But I will say that it adds to the pleasure 
of building that great work that you will profit by it. You will profit most 
by it; for you have the greatest carrying trade.’ 


When this address was submitted to President Wilson he endorsed it. 

It is generally admitted that Mr. Page exercised a very great influence 
in reversing the policy of the Taft Administration, and shaping the new 
policy of the Wilson Administration in respect to the Panama Tolls 
question. 

It was but little more than a year after Mr. Page had begun his 
duties in London that Germany invaded Belgium. From the first, 
Ambassador Page perceived the real meaning of the war and the peril 
to those fundamental principles of freedom and justice for which the 
United States has stood throughout its life as a nation. 

He had an unerring grasp of the real issues involved and of their 
significance to America. He exerted all his influence to convince the 
United States of the seriousness of the German menace, and he was 
one of the few Americans qualified by study and reflection to rise to 
the task confronting us. It was through his sympathetic spirit and 
the confidence and good will which he inspired that many of the vexa- 

5 


66 NivneteentoH ANNUAL SEssION 


tious questions between the United States and Great Britain were re- 
moved and the peoples of the two countries united in common thought 
and action. 

With the invasion of Belgium, and Great Britain’s declaration of war 
upon Germany, Mr. Page’s problems became exceedingly delicate and 
complex. Indeed, they were almost overwhelming, for Mr. Page had 
to represent in England the Powers that were at war with her. His 
duties became more exacting than had been those of any other Ambas- 
sador who had filled the post. He had the confidence of the British 
Government, and he exerted himself at all times to bring about the most 
cordial relations between the United States and Great Britain. His 
friendship for Sir Edward Grey enabled these two great representa- 
tives of the Anglo-Saxon race to work for common ends, under cir- 
cumstances of peculiar difficulty, with an absolute certainty of each 
other’s methods and motives, that bridged many a dangerous gap be- 
tween their respective countries. Had Mr. Page been of mediocre or 
average ability it would have been a calamity for America, and event- 
ually to the whole world. 

Day by day our Ambassador was causing America to be honored by 
those who had not honored her and to be more highly honored by those 
who had. Walter Hines Page was a typical American, therefore it 
was given to him to labor more successfully than any other man of his 
time at the forging of a golden link between those countries whose 
mutual understanding and good will are supremely important to the 
welfare of the world today. 

Mr. Page was confronted during those critical times with many 
difficult and controversial questions. He never forgot that he repre- 
sented a neutral nation. He so conducted his affairs as to smooth away 
difficulties, to remain on friendliest terms with and to convince the 
British of his personal sympathy, although insisting strenuously on 
the point of view of his government. 

Mr. Page’s duties were infinite in variety and number, yet he per- 
formed them all with unfailing tact. He possessed the touch of genius 
which made him the accredited representative not only of a government 
to a government, but of a people to a people. He was called upon to 
represent not only the policies of his government, but the sentiments of 
the American people, and he did that upon every occasion. He dis- 
played at all times the full consciousness of representing one hundred 
million people. He spoke as the voice of those people. Everything he 
said rang with Americanism. He expressed the views of America— 
not his own views. Those who heard him realized that they listened 
to the true spokesman of the American people. 


Strate Lirzrary anp Historrcat Association 67 


He at all times kept his government informed of the policies of the 
Allied nations, and he labored within the bounds permitted to an 
Ambassalor to bring the policies of our government and the govern- 
ments of the Allies into unison. 

The patriotic services rendered by Mr. Page in those critical years, 
and the sacrificial impulse with which he gave himself to the work of 
his office, makes his career stand out in bold relief, and his name 
memorable among the famous Americans who have represented the 
United States at the Court of St. James. 

America’s desire to avert the conflict of the nations and to halt their 
onrush into barbaric slaughter was clearly manifest from the very 
beginning. Our Ambassadors in the belligerent countries were in- 
structed to offer to the various belligerent governments our good offices 
in the event they should be acceptable or serve any useful purpose in 
the impending crisis. 

It was in full accord with the character of the man, of his high con- 
cept of his duties, and the genius which had enabled him to secure the 
good will of the Government to which he was accredited that Ambas- 
sador Page had on the very day, and before he had received the Com- 
munication of the Secretary of State, informally requested Sir Edward 
Grey, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to inform him 
if at any time or in any way the good offices of the United States could 
be used in the existing crisis for the preservation of peace. 

At forty minutes past 1 A. M. on August 5, 1914, the following 
note was presented to Ambassador Page by the British Foreign Office: 


“Aucust 4, 1914. 


“The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to 
the United States representative and has the honor to inform his Excellency 
that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany.” 


On the same day President Wilson sent to the heads of the several 
belligerent states his offer of mediation. After presenting the Presi- 
dent’s note to King George, Mr. Page sent the following telegram to 
the United States Secretary of State: 


“T have delivered directly to the King the message of the President. His 
Majesty expressed most earnestly his thanks and requested me to convey 
them to the President. He talked long and appreciatively, and he expressed 
the hope that an occasion would come when the President’s offer of mediation 
might be accepted.” 


Ambassador Page, deeply conscious of our rights and our duties, and 
knowing the soul of America because he was the personification of 


68 NineteEntH ANNUAL SESSION 


America, has left us for all time in the record of his messages the rey- 
elation of his high sense of public duty not only for the benefit of his 
own people, but for the benefit of civilization as a whole. 

He felt instinctively the sinister purpose of the Imperial German 
Government. He was not blinded to the menace of German militarism 
and bureaucracy. He understood the propaganda and the duplicity of 
the German Emperor. He knew that the German Emperor’s proposal 
of peace in those early days of the war would be essentially that of the 
conqueror, and that by misrepresentation and accusation he would seek 
to save himself, his throne, and his bureaucracy. He was eager to have 
America understand these things and to know that the German Emperor 
sought to influence American public opinion by every means in his 
power. 

Mr. Page instinctively read the mood of the British and the firm 
character of their resolve. He perceived the universal condemnation of 
the German Government and its methods, and he realized that there 
was developing in the United Kingdom a grim determination not to 
allow to go unpunished the outrages and the crimes committed in the 
name of German “kultur.” “Germany,” said Sir Edward Grey to him, 
“has done a grievous and irreparable wrong to Belgium; and no peace 
can be concluded that will permit the continuance of or the recurrence 
of an armed brute power in Central Europe which violates treaties to 
make war and assaults the continuity of civilization. Terms of peace 
must provide for an end of militarism and reparation for ruined Bel- 
gium. There can be no permanent peace until the German Emperor 
and his system are utterly overthrown.” 

By November 6, 1914, Mr. Page had assumed charge of the affairs 
at London of the Imperial German Government, of Austria-Hungary, 
and of Turkey, at the express request of those governments made to 
our government. Already burdened with the affairs of his own govern- 
ment, hourly increasing in magnitude and scope, as American citizens 
in Great Britain came to realize the impending crisis, bending all his 
efforts to avert war if it were possible to do so honorably, working day 
and night in the interest of those who appealed to him by right of prior 
claim, there were thus added to the problems of our Ambassador at 
London the problems of the belligerents. 

As soon as the impression obtained in London that war had been 
declared the Embassy was overrun with our citizens. The question 
of money was acute. Banks were closed, and those who had letters of 
credit were unable to cash them. The problem confronting Ambassador 
Page was one to tax the resources of even the strongest. 


Sratrm Lirprary anp Historica Association 69 


There were continuous conferences with the British Foreign Office, 
repeated calls on the representatives of the Central Powers, and details 
without number. The Department at Washington must be kept in- 
formed of every minute change of the impending crisis. Thousands 
of Americans surged into the Embassy, and the citizens of the with- 
drawing governments looked to the American Ambassador for help. 

Mr. Page was everywhere. Overwhelmed with details, he nevertheless 
had time to listen to even the humblest. For the distressed there was 
a smile and a word of cheer which went far to soothe and sustain. 
Throughout those days of storm and frenzy he radiated a calm courage, 
contagious in its very nature, affecting all who came within his presence. 

To the unprecedented situation Ambassador Page brought the Amer- 
ican gift of organization. The Embassy was moved to more commo- 
dious quarters, the staff was enlarged and reorganized, and the work of 
relief begun. Patriotic Americans in London came to offer their serv- 
ices and their aid to those of their fellows who were destitute of food 
and shelter. With the help of the Ambassador they promptly insti- 
tuted a relief organization remarkable for its scope and its efficiency. 
From their own resources they raised a fund large enough to relieve 
immediate distress and provide for the needy until help should come 
from Washington. 

London became the center of American interests. From Holland, 
from France, from Germany, from Austria, from the Balkans, from 
Russia, and, indeed, from far-off Siberia, the tide of Americans tended 
in a constant stream to the Embassy at London. When word came that 
the warship Tennessee was leaving the United States with a supply of 
gold and a Commission of Relief, the Ambassador and his volunteers 
were already hard ‘at work helping all who were in need. Mr. Page’s 
note sent on this occasion is characteristic of the man. He said: “I 
have formed an advisory financial committee, and we are working in 
every way to reach cases of need at various places on the Continent. 
The Embassy staff, the voluntary assistants, and the voluntary. relief 
committee are all working finely, effectively and cheerfully.” 

When rumors began to circulate that American citizens in Germany 
were in distress it was Mr. Page who suggested to the Imperial German 
Government that if it would place at the disposal of the American 
Ambassador at Berlin any reasonable sum of gold for the relief of 
distressed Americans in Germany, the Embassy at London would de- 
posit a like amount to the credit of Germany wherever Germany would 
designate. 

The demand, insistent and importunate, for transportation to the 
United States began as early as August ist, and by the middle of 


70 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


August was the issue of the hour. Ambassador Page was anxious to 
get our citizens out of Europe, and especially was he anxious to get 
them out of Germany. He sent many valuable suggestions to the De- 
partment at Washington, and because he enjoyed the supreme confi- 
dence of the Secretary of State, was given wide discretionary powers. 

For the Departments at Washington Mr. Page summarized in briefest 
terms the needs of our citizens stranded in Europe, and the program 
we should adopt for their relief. 

If we have seen Mr. Page during these harrassing days exemplifying 
in every respect the ideal Ambassador in the crisis caused by the sudden 
declaration of war; if we have seen him offering to the belligerents the 
good offices of his government; if we have seen him aiding those who 
were entrusted to his care, we must also behold him scrupulously 
upholding and protecting the rights of his Government. Never for- 
getting his responsibility as the representative of a neutral nation, diffi- 
cult though his position was, and conducting with sincerity and pains- 
taking care the affairs of the Central Powers entrusted to him, Mr. Page 
saw clearly the true conditions of affairs. He guarded jealously the 
rights of American citizens and was first to insist upon them and 
first to resent any attempt to deny or abrogate them. 

He urged our Government to announce that it would not permit 
any interference with passenger ships of any nationality carrying 
American citizens home, and if necessary, to use our war vessels to 
convoy them. He felt that only in this way could we command the 
respect of mankind and the gratitude of our citizens. “If the sea is 
not made safe,” he said, “for the many thousands of Americans stranded 
in Europe, immeasurable suffering will be forced upon them, to say 
nothing of the loss of property, perhaps even life, by reason of causes 
which we should resent as hostile to our theories of civilization.” 

As soon as the United States found that Great Britain would be 
involved in the war we knew it would extend to the open seas, and 
sooner or later we would be involved in controversies respecting our 
rights on the high seas. 

Realizing that we had rights on the seas which must be respected, 
it was our duty to induce all the belligerents to restrict their naval 
warfare within prescribed zones. 

Seventy-five thousand American travelers were aided in one way or 
another, and eight thousand were aided financially. Mr. Page and his 
staff worked day and night for seven weeks. Yet there were those 
of our citizens abroad who did not hesitate to complain against the 
Relief Commission and especially against the Ambassador. Nothing 
gave Mr. Page greater pain than to feel that there should be even 


Grate LirerARy AND HuistorrcaL ASsocIATION fal 


imaginary cause for complaint. Many of our citizens thought the 
Government had a vast fund for free distribution; still others thought 
they should be supported at Government expense until they should be 
able to leave for the United States. Many were impatient, some were 
selfish, and many were inconsiderate. 

During the early days of the war more than four hundred people 
of German or Austro-Hungarian birth claiming the rights and privi- 
leges of American citizenship reached London each day from the Con- 
tinent en route to the United States. As American citizens they were 
entitled to all the privileges and immunities our country had to confer 
upon them. There were hundreds of others who had never become 
citizens of the United States, and who could claim at best only tem- 
porary residence there, yet they too demanded the protection of the 
American Ambassador. They, indeed, were the most troublesome of all. 

Mr. Page was forbidden by the regulations to grant to these people 
who had only certificates of departure, real passports to our country, 
and this became one of his most perplexing and delicate problems. In 
destitute cases they were given lodging, food, and steerage passage, but 
they were so numerous as to tax the resources of the Relief Committee. 
The Embassy swarmed with them. All this was but an incident—an 
additional problem, merely, to those which daily confronted the Ambas- 
sador. Day and night, and Sunday as well, the Ambassador and his 
staff remained at their post, and yet Mr. Page found time to smile, to 
encourage and to sympathize with those in distress. 

Soon after the invasion of Belgian territory, Mr. Page in conjunction 
with Herbert C. Hoover, organized the International Commission for 
Relief in Belgium, and upon the recommendation of Mr. Page, Mr. 
Hoover was placed at the head of the Commission. It may be truly said 
that Mr. Page conceived the scheme and selected Mr. Hoover to carry 
it into effect. 

It was through this organization, placed at the service of humanity, 
that the inhabitants of Belgium and Northern France were fed. There 
were nearly four million starving people in Belgium. Belgian children 
were on less than half normal rations, and many of them were dying 
of hunger. Mr. Page had the warmth of heart, the broad humanity, 
and the great love for his fellowman which made him peculiarly 
susceptible to human suffering. He was deeply affected by the plight 
of the destitute of Belgium, and he spent much time with Mr. Hoover 
in planning the work of the Commission for Relief. He gave himself 
whole-heartedly to this work for humanity until he was himself forced 
to surrender to his own sufferings. There were many times when the 


72 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


very existence of the Commission was hanging in the balance, and due 
to Mr. Page’s resourceful and tactful intervention it was saved. 

As the representative in Great Britain of the Central Powers Am- 
bassador Page was called on to look after their prisoners of war. These 
duties were not always pleasant. They were arduous duties, involving 
much detail and personal attention; they were delicate duties, involving 
the greatest tact. The first task was to secure the consent of Germany 
to exchange with Great Britain civilian subjects detained by the respec- 
tive governments. This Mr. Page accomplished by the latter part of 
August, 1914, and for his services he was given the thanks of the British 
people. 

As evidence of his work in caring for German interests, a single 
instance may be cited: On August 30, 1914, Mr. Churchill, First Lord 
of the Admiralty, advised Mr. Page that Admiral von Tirpitz’ son had 
been captured in a naval engagement. Mr. Page sent to the Admiral 
through Ambassador Gerard the following message: “Your son has 
been saved and is not wounded.” 

Mr. Page understood the sinister intent of Germany’s war lords and 
their disregard of the rules of war. He not only had no love for the 
enemies of civilization, but he longed to see the day when all the world 
would take up arms against them. But, however much his righteous 
indignation might condemn the authors of these outrages, his tender 
passion of sympathy was aroused and he sent the message to reassure 
the anxiety of a father for the safety of his son. 

In accordance with Article XIV of the Annex to the Hague Con- 
vention, No. IV of October 18, 1907, the British Government instituted 
a Prisoners of War Information Bureau. From Septemiber 21st on 
Mr. Page became the channel through which the many communications 
concerning the prisoners of war of the belligerent powers were to pass. 

After only a very short interval it fell to the lot of our Ambassadors 
in the various belligerent countries to inspect the prison camps in those 
countries to which they were respectively accredited. 

The recriminations of the hostile governments concerning their pris- 
oners of war resulted merely in adding to the problems of our Ambas- 
sadors, already overburdened as they were, with others more exacting 
and delicate. The bitterness between the opposing governments became 
daily more acute, and the German Government requested Mr. Page to 
visit personally the military prisoners and detention camps and to report 
upon them. 

Even while our Ambassadors were conscientiously engaged in this 
work of merey the German Government did not hesitate to accuse them 
of being pro-British. Generally, all who were not with the Germans 


Srarr Lirprary anp HistoricaL AssocraTION 73 


were accused of being against them. This attitude was a source of 
regret and righteous indignation to Mr. Page. In all matters pertain- 
ing to the subjects of the belligerents he felt that he had acted with 
as rigid neutrality as the Government at Washington itself. He had 
served the German Government and the Government of Austria-Hun- 
gary with the utmost efficiency. There were at least 20,000 prisoners 
of war in Great Britain, and for them Mr. Page had done everything 
possible under the circumstances. 

The Allied governments pursued at first a wavering policy with 
regard to cotton, hesitating to arouse American resentment, but ulti- 
mately declared cotton contraband by a royal proclamation dated 
August 24, 1915. This at once aroused public opimion in America. 
Rumors were current that the British Government was trying to stop 
the legitimate trade of the United States with the neutral countries in 
order that she might capture such trade for the British Empire. These 
rumors were given all the more credence when it was pointed out that 
there was a British East India cotton crop of some 5,000,000 bales, and 
that the longer Great Britain eould keep American cotton from going 
to Europe the better off she would be in East India. The impression 
became current that Italian and other neutral ships would transport 
this cotton from India to German and Austrian ports unmolested by 
Great Britain. 

This procedure by Great Britain produced widespread irritation and 
dissatisfaction throughout our country, especially in the South, and it 
was felt that unless some radical change were effected the situation 
would present such difficulties as to make a solution impossible. It 
was the definite conviction throughout our country that American goods 
shipped in neutral vessels to neutral ports should not be interfered with. 

It became imperative that Great Britain should understand the neces- 
sity for more considerate and liberal treatment of American trade, par- 
ticularly cotton, oil, and meat products. Our government took the 
attitude that the general policy adopted by Great Britain of seizing 
American shipping on the mere presumption of enemy destination and 
in restricting our trade with neutral countries was unjustifiable under 
international law. 

The situation at London was delicate indeed. It was expected of 
Ambassador Page that he should present these protests of his govern- 
ment and state clearly, explicitly and fully the case of the United States, 
and that while doing so he should maintain the most friendly relations 
possible under the circumstances. 

While the British Government was trying to formulate a policy and 
at the time when public opinion in America was becoming more and 


74 NinereentH ANNUAL SESSION 


more acute, Ambassador Page was in continual communication with 
the British Foreign Office. While there was any hope of keeping cotton 
from the contraband list he labored diligently and earnestly, making 
most urgent representations, both formal and informal to the British 
Admiralty and Cabinet officers. 

At one time there were more than 35 American vessels detained in 
British ports, and their owners were most importunate in their demands 
for the speedy release of these ships. The expense incurred by the 
delay was enormous, and owners and shippers were facing ruin. Am- 
bassador Page brought these matters to the attention of Sir Edward 
Grey himself, often unofficially, and was ever urging speedy trial and 
immediate settlement with American owners for vessels and cargoes 
detained. 

Informally and unofficially Mr. Page was able to bring to the atten- 
tion of Sir Edward the political dangers that would arise from inter- 
ference with our cotton trade. He explained the embarrassment in 
which the Administration would find itself should Great Britain persist 
in its contemplated plans, and the harmful effect this would have upon 
public feeling toward Great Britain in the United States. He im- 
pressed upon the British Government that interference with American 
cotton might mean utter ruin to our Southern States. 

It must not be forgotten that the controversy between our govern- 
ment and the government of Great Britain was not without its influence 
upon our own people and the people of Great Britain, and on several 
occasions public feeling in both countries ran high. There was grave 
apprehension as to the future relations between the United States and 
Britain should there be further occasion for notes as vigorous in tone 
as several already submitted by our State Department. 


At a time when the relations between the two countries were very 
delicate German agents loaded up the Dacia with cotton consigned either 
to Germany direct or to Germany through Holland. Everyone realized 
that this ship would prove a test case. After she left this side Am- 
bassador Page and Sir Edward Grey chanced to discuss the case of 
the Dacia and her cargo. Sir Edward said that it was impossible for 
the British to allow the cotton to go through and that the ship would 
be seized and carried to a British port. “Sir Edward,” said Mr. Page, 
“almost everybody knows the British Empire has a navy; it has had 
a great deal of advertisement of late. On the other hand the French 
Republic has a navy, but it has had very little advertisement.” ‘Sir 
Edward smiled and replied that he got the point and that if it would 
ease matters any he had no doubt that the Belgian Royal Yacht would 


ae 


ee ee ee ee SS ee ee 


-_~ 


OT ae Og ae ae © ane 


Srate Lirrerary snp Historicat AssocraTIon 15 


go out and get the Dacia. French destroyers did take the Dacia, and 
the matter was dropped. Thus was averted a very embarrassing situ- 
ation. 

On April 2, 1917, President Wilson, addressing the Congress, advised 
an immediate declaration of war against the Imperial German Govern- 
ment, and on April 6th Congress formally declared a state of war to 
exist between the United States and Germany. This news created 
tremendous enthusiasm among the Americans in London, and every 
one was eager for a grand parade. Mr. Page, however, had a deeper 
appreciation of the significance of our entry into the war, and at his 
instance the great event was celebrated in London not by tumult and 
shouting, but by a solemn service of prayer and dedication in St. Paul’s 
Cathedral. It was a profoundly impressive ceremony. The great church 
was crowded to overflowing by a representative congregation of Amer- 
icans and British. Mr. and Mrs. Page occupied the foremost pew on 
one side of the center aisle, and the King and Queen with the Premier 
and the Cabinet Ministers were seated in the pews opposite. American 
and British flags were displayed together in the chancel. The great 
band of the Welch Fusileers rendered in a most impressive manner 
the Star-Spangled Banner, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the 
British National Anthem. The services, a solemn and responsive cere- 
mony of dedication and appeal to God, were conducted ‘by the American 
Bishop Brent and the British Archbishop. It was an occasion that 
brought humility of mind and yet the strength of confidence to every 
heart. 

Subsequently in an address at Leeds Mr. Page said: “The United 
States came into the war only when their wise and patient President 
could not do otherwise, and only when the people also had reached the 
limit of an honorable patience.” 

When America entered the war new duties were to come to Ambas- 
sador Page. It was he who helped forward that unprecedented unity 
of action which characterized America’s co-belligerency. His judgment, 
his honesty, and his freedom from any thought of self supplied him in 
full measure with the delicate skill and steady nerve which the situation 
demanded. His official services were faultless and admirable. 

Mr. Page knew that the war was a war for civilization and that it 
was to our interest not only to see the Allies win, but to see the Allies 
win as rapidly as possible, for Mr. Page saw the picture of devastation 
which was sweeping over Europe and the very dilapidated and terrible 
state into which the world was drifting. 

From the very moment when he felt that a declaration of war by 
America could not longer be honorably deferred he began to urge 


76 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION 


thorough preparation. His suggestions were invaluable. They were so 
numerous and so comprehensive as to extend to every detail of the 
problem. He gave to our government the benefit of the experience of 
all our Allies from the commencement of the war, and as one who for 
three years had been at the storm center of the conflict. These sug- 
gestions touched upon every aspect of the war activities and included 
the following: That the government prohibit American banks from 
transmitting funds or renewing credits to any of the nationals of the 
Central Powers; the establishment of an embargo on German and 
Austrian securities or balances held by American banks; the appoint- 
ment of a controller of shipping, of wireless, and of censorship; the 
creation of a department for the co-ordination of technical and financial 
matters, and a department of munitions; the enactment of a conscription 
law; the laying of an embargo on goods destined to neutral ports but 
intended for ultimate enemy consumption; the execution of an inten- 
sive shipbuilding campaign; an increase in our merchant marine by 
the charter of neutral merchant ships; a reduction of coastwise ship- 
ping; prevention of competitive buying by the allied and associated 
governments as between themselves and as between them and the United 
States; the dispatching to London of an admiral, a general, financial 
experts, secret service experts, censors, and shipping experts for the 
purpose of establishing the necessary co-operation with the Allies in 
the various activities necessary to the prosecution of the war. 

It was upon Ambassador Page’s suggestion that our government sent 
Admiral Sims, then President of the Naval War College at Newport, 
Rhode Island, to London as the Naval representative of the United 
States. 

It was Ambassador Page who suggested to our government that the 
British, and the French as well, were very anxious that we send a unit 
of regular United States troops to spend several days in London, to 
go on to Paris, and then to the British Front, thus giving the British 
and the French visible evidence of our hearty co-operation. Ambas- 
sador Page emphasized the moral and the inspiring effect of such a 
procedure, both military and political. In this he was given the hearty 
approval of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the French Min- 
ister of War. 

Early in 1917 the German submarine warfare was no longer of 
doubtful portent. By April, 1917, the British Admiralty was forced 
to concede that Germany was winning the war, and at a rate that might 
mean the early surrender of the British Empire. The British Admiralty 
frankly admitted that it had no solution to offer. 


Strate Lirzprary anp Hisroricat Association TN 


The British no longer controlled the seas, even though the Grand 
Fleet successfully restrained the German battle squadron and kept it 
locked up in German harbors. It was Mr. Page who impressed upon 
our government the fact that the Allies needed our help far more than 
they were inclined to admit. 

By April 26, 1917, Ambassador Page had relinquished control of the 
affairs of the Central Powers which had been entrusted to him at the 
outbreak of the war. America had entered the war in the cause of 
democracy. 

It would be difficult to imagine a man more suitable by character, 
temperament and training for the premier post of American diplomacy 
in such a great crisis. 

He was a disciple of the new school of diplomiacy—of open, direct, 
and candid diplomacy, as distinguished from the old diplomacy of in- 
direction and intrigue with its circuitous methods of obtaining results. 

Mr. Page’s relations with Sir Edward Grey were almost fraternal. 
Their sympathy was inspired by the same ideals. They had a hopeful 
outlook on life and humanity; they were filled with the milk of human 
kindness. They were both sincere and honest and hated sham and 
hypocrisy. Between these two eminent representatives of the Anglo- 
Saxon race there was a feeling of absolute confidence. Today Sir 
Edward, now Viscount Grey, Great Britain’s Ambassador to the United 
States, is continuing on this side of the Atlantic the laudable effort to 
unite even more closely the two great branches of the English-speaking 
race, an undertaking so dear to the heart of Walter Hines Page and 
which he so auspiciously initiated and fostered during his diplomatic 
career in London. 

Mr. Page’s public work from almost the very beginning was in the 
path of the blazing world war. He was confronted with many new 
questions of much complexity and obscurity; he found stern work on 
his hands and he did it like the great American that he was. For the 
solution of the momentous problems he possessed the necessary qualities 
in ample measure and he applied them with signal success. His inter- 
pretations of the wishes of his government were superb and he merited 
and received the highest approval of the Department of State. He was 
at the storm center of the great conflict, and he felt the heart-throbs 
of the men who were directing the great business. From the very 
beginning of his mission he displayed the highest merit an envoy can 
have—he inspired confidence. His perfect sincerity, his frankness, and 
the friendly relations he was able to establish with Lord Grey and Mr. 
Balfour were never for a moment clouded, though there were times 


78 NuveteentH Annus SzEssion 


during our neutrality when his demands upon them in behalf of his 
government’s rights were firm and even severe. 

Furthermore, Mr. Page had the practical good sense which enabled 
him to see things in their true perspective. Those who knew his love 
of right and justice could not doubt the nature of his personal feelings 
regarding the main issue of the war, but his personal sentiments never 
affected the correctness of his official attitude. His duty was to repre- 
sent his own government, stating and maintaining its views courage- 
ously, and that duty was discharged fearlessly, with sound judgment 
and infinite tact. 

By the British people Mr. Page was genuinely loved and respected. 
Rarely has there been a foreigner in London for whom Londoners had 
a warmer feeling. His knowledge of English history and institutions, 
and a subtle sympathy of race instinct convinced the British of his 
sympathy and sincerity. 

Nothing throughout all his years of service was so near to his heart 
as the creation of perfect sympathy and c-operation between Great 
Britain and America, and to this task he untiringly devoted himself. 
He understood the English mind and English usages as well. He 
saw what were the essentials on which British and American policy 
could agree and the direction which both peoples might travel in mutual 
accord. 

His reception by the Scotch was marked by the most cordial hos- 
pitality and the heartiest fellow feeling, both in official and university 
circles. 

He was awarded honorary degrees at Glasgow, at Sheffield, at Cam- 
bridge, and at several other universities. At the tercentenary anniver- 
sary of Shakespeare’s death, celebrated by the Shakespeare Society, Mr. 
Page was among the speakers. He spoke briefly, but he introduced a 
note of fine simplicity and directness that had an immediate effect. 
His voice was clear and strong, his manner full of dignity, and his 
sentences were of a style that strongly recalled that of Lincoln’s public 
speeches. Americans who were present were thrilled to see how splen- 
didly Mr. Page sustained the traditions of his post, where so many 
fine and eloquent representatives had preceded him. The evidence of 
strong and high character was very marked in him, in his appearance, 
his manner, his pleasant and resonant voice, and in the lofty vein in 
which he gave his short statement of his views of the significance of 
Shakespeare’s work and place in history. One of his best-liked treasures 
was a beautiful folio edition of Shakespeare’s Works presented at the 
time of his election as a member of the Society. 


4 


Srate Lirerary anp Historicat AssocraTion 79 


On the occasion when he was offered the Grand Cross of Knight 
Commander of the Bath he refused in a most gracious manner, and 
gave as a reason for his refusal the following: “I am going back to a 
very plain, simple people, and they won’t understand my coming back 
wearing this gorgeous decoration from the King of England.” 

Thus he displayed quietly yet eloquently his belief in that sturdy 
democracy of America—which quality has steadily grown into a national 
characteristic. He believed in the common man—in his capacity to 
govern himself and to achieve; and in this respect he was truly demo- 
cratic. He wrought ceaselessly to help the common man and to bring 
him through the adjuncts of education and health, to the position where 
he could help himself. Mr. Page’s faith in the capacity of the common 
man was inspired by his tremendous sympathy, by his practical experi- 
ence, and by his profound knowledge of the common man. Of his 
profound belief in the plain citizen Mr. Page’s own words afford the 
clearest exposition. Said he: 


“A community is not rich because it contains a few rich men; it is not 
intelligent because it contains a few men of learning, it is not healthful 
because it contains a few strong men, nor is it of good morals because it 
contains good women—if the rest of the population also be not well to do 
or intelligent, or healthful, or of good morals.” 

His creed of the common man expresses the whole concept of twen- 
tieth century idealism: 

“I believe in the full training of both the hands and the mind of every 
child born of woman. 

“T believe that by the right training of men we add to the wealth of 
the world. 

“T believe in the perpetual regeneration of society, in the immortality of 
democracy, and in growth everlasting.” 


Mr. Page’s manner was at all times simple, kind, and of such charm- 
ing grace that he easily won the good will and the warm friendship of 
all who came in contact with him. He was a modest, agreeable, demo- 
cratic gentleman. His colleagues held him in highest esteem; his subor- 
dinates loved him for his democratic spirit. He showed the same kind 
consideration and cordiality to the humblest subordinate in his office 
as to titled lords. 

At the Embassy Mr. and Mrs. Page put into practice the best tradi- 
tions of American hospitality. Mrs. Page was at home every Thursday 
afternoon, and to the Embassy came not only all the American officers 
stationed in or nearby London, but British officers and statesmen as 
well. The Embassy was the meeting place for Americans, and on Sun- 
days, afternoon and evening, assembled there were the most represen- 


80 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


tative men and women of London. Red Cross units and similar organ- 
izations passing through London were always given a most cordial wel- 
come by Mr. and Mrs. Page; and on the occasions when London was 
visited by General Pershing, by Admiral Sims, Secretary Baker, and 
other distinguished Americans, there could be seen in the Ambassador’s 
drawing room Lloyd George, Mr. Balfour, General Smutz, and, indeed, 
most of the members of the British War Cabinet, as well as the ranking 
officers of the British Army and Navy. 

Mr. Page’s natural dignity and his kindness, coupled with the graci- 
ousness and amiability of Mrs. Page, made the American Embassy one 
of the most pleasant and popular homes in London. They diffused an 
atmosphere of simple and unaffected friendliness, which English visitors 
find in the best society of America. Mr. Page’s home was an American 
home, truly representative of the best features of American life. It was 
said by the British officers that the best thing in London was Sunday 
night at the Pages, when you could talk to the Ambassador and Mrs. 
Page for three hours at a stretch. 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Page encouraged the establishment of large 
American hospitals in England. Women of American birth and holding 
high position in London, sought and received the Ambassador’s and Mrs. 
Page’s heartiest co-operation in the establishment and management of 
the hospitals and similar enterprises of vital assistance to the Allied 
cause. 

Among the ladies attached to the Embassy, Mrs. Page organized an 
efficient working force for the preparation of bandages and other Red 
Cross supplies, meeting regularly at the Ambassador’s residence. 

Walter Hines Page has become one of the heroic figures of the 
greatest crisis in the history of the world. By his wisdom and his ear- 
nestness of purpose, he set an example of devotion to high and pure 
ideals. The years of unrelaxing strain wore him out. It was a tragedy 
to see his health gradually give way under the strain. During the early 
part of 1918, a friend spent a week-end at Sandwich on the Channel 
with Mr. Page. A great battle was raging across the Channel. From 
time to time he could hear the sound of the guns. He was pale and 
sick. As the big guns thundered away, he said: “Do you hear those 
guns? They are settling the great question as to whether right and 
justice shall prevail over wrong and oppression. While the situation 
looks dark, nevertheless I have an abiding faith that God will see to it 
that the forces of right will triumph.” His spirit was bent upon the 
effort to remain at his post until the achievement of the great task. 
Victory and defeat were now trembling in the balance. He would not 
let go though his friends were urging him to protect his health. Mr. 


Sratre Lrrerary anp Histrorican AssocraTIon 81 


Page went to London weighing two hundred pounds; he left there 
weighing one hundred and twenty. The strain affected first his diges- 
tion. He grew thinner and thinner, and, worn down, his digestion gone, 
it finally became impossible for him to sleep. His breathing became so 
difficult that he was forced to sit up in bed. Yet he never lost his 
eourage, his courtesy, or his poise. 

When he was presented by the American Chamber of Commerce in 
London with a beautiful ink stand he was too ill to receive in person 
the committee that presented it. His eyes were so inflamed he could 
hardly see; yet he wrote a letter of appreciation with his own hands, 
and with his eyes closed. 


At last his health became so seriously affected that he felt that his 
usefulness as an official was impaired, and so he resigned his post on 
April 28, 1918, and soon thereafter returned to the United States. 
Broken in health yet still courageous and active in spirit, he sought 
by rest and medical skill to win back some of the energy spent in his 
service to his country and to humanity. But it was not possible. Over- 
work and disease are factors to which the most indomitable soul must 
finally yield and Walter Hines Page was no exception. On December 
22nd, 1918, he died. When he became aware of his approaching end 
one of his last requests was that his body be carried to the sandhills of 
Moore County, North Carolina, and placed in Bethesda Churchyard, 
there to rest beside his own people. He lost his life im the great tragedy 
that was being enacted, but he lived long enough to see the great cause 
which was so near to his heart, triumph completely. 

The tributes of the press and of prominent men were as sincere as 
they were profuse. Of him Secretary of State Lansing, with whom Mr. 
Page was officially associated from March, 1914, until his death, says: 


“His frankness and honesty, his abounding optimism, his sense of humor, 
his sympathy and intellect, all combined to make him a captivating man. 
We must apply to him the high praise of saying that he was genuine. 
Neither affectation, nor posing, nor vanity, nor pretense entered into his 
make-up. Of course the overwhelming interest in his career in London 
pertains to the conduct of his mission after the world went to war and 
especially after we were swept into the war. His position was one of great 
delicacy and responsibility. The foreign policy of the United States must 
be shaped and managed in Washington and must be absolutely in the keeping 
of the home Government, and an Ambassador to a belligerent power must 
so conduct himself as to retain the friendship of the belligerent while he 
leaves the administration unembarrassed by his acts. Mr. Page seemed to 
understand the administration’s policy intuitively, and while he maintained 
cordial relations with the British Government, he left his Department with 
a free hand to deal with the numerous questions which arose between the 
two countries as the war progressed. 

6 


82 NuvereentoH Annvat Szssion 


“TJ cannot speak adeauately here of Mr. Page’s management of the innu- 
merable questions which confronted him from August, 1914, until he was 
stricken at the post of duty four years later. The whole business was 
without precedent in its importance, its volume and its ramifications. A 
comprehension of it must await the publication of the history of the World 
War as the records of the Department of State reveal it. I can only say 
that Mr. Page’s record in this extraordinary crisis was one of which all 
Americans should feel honored to commemorate. Our mission to England 
has been notable in the distinguished men to whom it has been entrusted. 
The list includes the three Adamses, John, his son, John Quincy, and his 
grandson, Charles Francis; the two historians, Bancroft and Motley; Lowell, 
Bayard, Phelps, Hay and Choate, and not least in the list must be added the 
name of Walter Hines Page.” 


His beloved friend, Woodrow Wilson, who heartily reciprocated his 
confidence and affection, said of him: 


“Fie crowned a life of active usefulness by rendering his coumtry a 
service of unusual distinction and deserves to be held in the affectionate 
memory of his fellow countrymen. In a time of exceeding difficulty he 
acquitted himself with discretion, unwavering fidelity and admirable intel- 
ligence.” : 


In speaking of Mr. Page, Lord Reading, Britain’s recent Ambassador 
to the United States, said: “There will be another golden chapter in 
the history of American co-operation for justice and the liberty of the 
world—and that chapter will be entitled ‘Walter Hines Page’” 

Sir Edward (now Viscount) Grey, the present British Ambassador 
to the United States and Mr. Page were intimately associated personally 


and in their official capacities. In answer to my request for his estimate — . 


of Mr. Page, Lord Grey said: 


“When Mr. Walter Hines Page came to London as ambassador his name 
was less known in England than that of the many distinguished men who 
had preceded him. The list of ambassadors who have come from the 
United States to\London and whose names are already distinguished in 
the world of literature or politics is a long one. They have been very 
generally appreciated and admired, and the names of some of them are 
household words in England still, but no one made a deeper impression 
on us than Mr. Page. This was in part due no doubt to the fact that 
while he was Ambassador the great world crisis occurred and the country 
was so strongly moved that it was ready to be deeply impressed, but it 
was due also to Mr. Page’s personal character. Strength of character is 
felt in a great crisis, and perhaps it is developed by it in a way that is not 
possible in more commonplace times. The thing that made itself felt in 
Mr. Page was the strength and depth of his moral feeling. He knew but 
one standard, by which he formed every opinion, by which he tried every 
action, by which he judged the merits of men and events. It was the simple 
clear standard of right and wrong. It was impossible to transact business 


Srate Lirerary anp Histrorican AssocraTion 8a 


with him except on this high plane. He lived on it himself and those with 
whom he dealt if they were not already on it had to get there in order to 
come in touch with him. There are no doubt in the world men who prefer 
lower planes of thought and action, but the majority of men prefer the 
higher and when they meet a man who makes them feel without hesitation 
or shadow of doubt that he lives there and only there, they are glad to 
meet him on his own high ground. This was the quality that Mr. Page 
possessed in a very high degree, which made it a satisfaction to transact 
business with him and a delight to talk with him. One could not be in 
his company without being the better for it and coming away strengthened 
and refreshed. 

“From the first moment of the war he made up his mind that right was 
on the side of the Allies and wrong was on the side of the Central Powers. 
He carried out faithfully the policy of neutrality as instructed by his Gov- 
ernment as long as that was the policy of the United States, but he left no 
one in doubt about his own personal opinion of the merits of the war and 
he expressed a faith in what the opinion of his countrymen would be, when 
they realized the issues, which never wavered. He believed in the public 
opinion of the United States and in its capacity for idealism. It was really 
an article of faith with him, and the unqualified way in which he expressed 
it was a fine tribute to his country and his nation. 

“During the first two years of the war some people may have doubted 
whether Mr. Page’s estimate of public opinion in the United States was not 
too sanguine, whether it did not arise not so much from knowledge as from 
that intense belief that his fellow-countrymen must share in his own feelings, 
which is characteristic of a great patriot. But when the United States came 
into the war the spirit which swept over the whole country, the height of 
idealism to which the nation rose, showed that Mr. Page was right, his 
faith justified and his knowledge true. 

“Tt was a privilege to be associated with him, either in private life or in 
official work, and I cherish his memory with honor, with gratitude and with 
affection.” 


Such in outline is the record of the first North Carolinian to sit at 
the Court of St. James. Author, scholar, diplomat, and world statesman 
though he was, one cannot say that education, environment and travel 
were the decisive factors in the development of such a character. A 
sturdy ancestry and a youth strengthened by wholesome Christian influ- 
ences amid 4p atmosphere of rural simplicity, were the great forces that 
shaped his life; and in this the State of North Carolina shares with 
the Nation the honor of rearing and developing a citizen worthy to be 
called a patriot of the highest type. 

It is fitting, therefore, that this Society should honor his memory. 
He was a true North Carolina product—a son of her hills and clear 
air, who went out in the world carrying with him his native talents and 
who returned bearing them increased an hundred fold. He left his 
native State with clear ideals of sacrifice and service; he came back 
with a body broken, but with a spirit vibrant and unbroken. 


84 Novereento Annvat Session 


In chaotic times such as these, when the Nation is tryiz 
ately to become adjusted to new and changed conditions, and 
whole world seems to be in a state of economic and political 
all that is needed is the application of that pure Americanism e 
fied in the life and character of Walter Hines Page. He ces L th 
American spirit. Born and reared in a State the population of 1 


throughout his career; and it was but natural that pure, ar ” 
Americanism should become the stiffening fabric of his character. — : 
North Carolina put into her son the ex she had in sag. of es he 


there was ° Aeeecee aed he lived it in his daily life mee 
world and the world is better by his having lived in it. _ o4 


Contributions of North Carolina Women to the World War 


By Arcurpatp HrnpErson 4 
University of North Carolina 


When the Secretary of War called upon the women of America to 
do their part in winning the war, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw asked Mr. 
Baker what he expected the woman’s committee to do. “We want you 
to co-ordinate the woman’s work of the United States,” said Mr. 
Baker, “all the war work of the women, so that they will not duplicate, 
they will not overlap and they will co-operate in carrying out every 
requirement of the government.” Perhaps Mr. Baker feared that it 
would ‘be impossible to get women to co-operate; so Dr. Shaw promptly 
replied : 

“Mr. Secretary, you seem to think that the women will not co-operate; 
that is because you have been dealing with men. If you will give them 
an object big enough and put back of them an incentive strong enough, 
you will find that the women of this country will co-operate, Mr. Secre- 
tary.” 

Today it is recognized, not only that the women fully maintained 
their pledge of co-operation from the war’s beginning to its end, but 
also, as Dr. Shaw says, none too strongly, that the war could never 
have been won if it had not been for the work of the women. Cer- 
tainly it is true that the women of this country suffered no such hard- 
ships, bore no such burdens, as were imposed by dire necessity upon 
the women of many other countries. But their readiness to serve to 
any extent was absolute; and within the limits of the situation, they 
gave themselves fully and without stint. The massed effort of many 
millions of women, energies bent to a single aim, is without parallel 
in history; and the extent and magnitude of that effort, ever growing 
in volume and intensity, were curtailed only by the comparative brevity 
of the war’s duration. 

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was designated by the President as Chair- 
man of the Woman’s Committee, Council of National Defense; and 
‘of the seventy-five presidents of the largest women’s organizations in 
the United States was formed the Advisory Committee of the Woman’s 
Committee, Council of National Defense. This Woman’s Committee, 
Council of National Defense, was then organized in every State in the 
Union under the direction of the National Woman’s Committee. The 
plan proposed and carried out was “to co-ordinate women’s organiza- 
tions and their working forces, in order to enlist at once the greatest 
possible number in the service which the national crisis demanded, and 
to supply a new and direct channel of communication and co-operation 


86 NuveTteentH AwnuaL SEssion 


between the women and the departments of the United States Govern- 
ment.” The fundamental idea was that this organization was to be a 
clearing house for all women’s war work, and not a new organization 
meeting in competition with other organizations. 

The leader in this work in North Carolina was Mrs. Laura Holmes 
Reilley, of Charlotte, second vice-president of the General Federation 
of Women’s Clubs (National), who, on May 28, 1917, received a com- 
mission from the Governor of North Carolina, appointing her a mem- 
ber of the State Council of Defense. She was shortly afterwards desig- 
nated Chairman of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National 
Defense; and was the intermediary for maintaining the closest and 
most friendly relations between the State Council and the Woman’s 
Committee, herself being, with the exception of chairman and secretary, 
the only member present at all the meetings of the State Council. The 
work was mapped out on large and constructive lines, the division of 
the organization being effected by counties and Congressional Districts, 
and the mere enumeration of the departments indicates the magnitude 
and comprehensiveness of the services rendered, covering, as they did, 
almost every phase of social service. 

The foremost function of the Woman’s Committee, it must be made 
plain, was local, co-ordinative and directive. Forces were set in motion 
in countless directions and through innumerable channels for carrying 
on the various phases of patriotic endeavor, and these forces made 
themselves powerfully felt in every corner of the State. During the 
first thirteen months of its work 11,358 North Carolina women formally 
registered for service, in consequence of which many government posi- 
tions were filled and many women put in touch with the proper authori- 
ties for specific war work. North Carolina’s slogan in food production 
was “A Garden for Every Home the Year Around”; and the food pro- 
duction of the State was immensely stimulated through this and other 
powerful agencies, being four times greater in 1917-18 than in the 
year preceding. The work in food administration was so vital and 
integral a factor in war work in this state that I shall speak of it later 
in greater detail. In all their work the devoted women “sanctified the 
daily duties by the spirit of sacrifice and of patriotism.” In these organ- 
izations throughout the nation ten million women concentrated their 
fruitful energies upon the labor asked for by the Government, which 
went far to bring victory to our arms. 

There was fortunately already in existence an organization which 
furnished the readiest outlet and avenue for woman’s sacrificial and 
maternal ministration to crusading and suffering humanity. This was 
that noble and consecrated band, the American National Red Cross, 


Srarrm Lirrrary anp Histroricat AssocrIaTIon 87 


which, judged by its realities no less than by its ideals, truly deserves 
to be called sublime. With perfect fitness it has been called “the greatest 
mother in the world,” seeking to draw “a vast net of mercy through an 
ocean of unspeakable pain.” From Belgium and from France went up 
one of the most poignant appeals to which a stricken world has ever 
lent ear. It is estimated that 1,250,000 people in Belgium and France 
alone were driven from their homes by the German invasion. During 
the height of our own struggle, ten million human beings looked to us 
for sustenance and for raiment—helplessly hemmed in behind the brist- 
ling wall of German bayonets. Is it any wonder, then—though wonder 
indeed it be!—that with this clamant appeal added to the urgent call 
of our own great needs, the membership of the National Red Cross 
leaped within fifteen months from less than a half million (486,194) 
to more than twenty millions (20,468,103), with the additional member- 
ship of eight millions in the Junior Red Cross. Of refugee garments, 
hospital supplies and garments, knitted articles and surgical dressings, 
the American Red Cross furnished during the war to the value of 
upwards of one hundred millions of dollars, and the American people, 
through this channel, gave in money and materials for the world’s 
relief upwards of 350 millions of dollars. 

The Southern division of this great organization, including women 
of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, 
contributed a mighty share in the total result—producing more than 
ten million articles (10,390,796), valued at a total of considerably more 
than three million dollars (3,187,233). In this connection I wish to 
stress the impressive demonstration, at once of women’s efficient can- 
vassing and of North Carolina’s patriotism, afforded by the Second 
Red Cross War Fund Drive (1918)—North Carolina’s quota being 
$608,500, and her total collections $1,135,621.39—practically double the 
amount. The official report which has recently reached me from the 
Southern Division, Atlanta, includes every finished article made and 
sent to this division from North Carolina, and numbers a total of 
2,339,907 articles. 

Figures, I must confess, have always had a certain fascination for 
me. But when I think of what these figures represent of hardship 
gladly suffered, of sacrifice willingly made, they become symbolic with 
the vitality of human greatness. 

Everywhere throughout North Carolina women found an outlet for 
patriotic service through Red Cross organizations to the number of 140 
Chapters, 360 Branches, and 250 Auxiliaries. These raised the total 
sum of $2,022,800.94—including the amounts raised in the First ($318,- 
606.47) and Second ($1,135,621.39) Red Cross Drives, and the amount 


88 Nineteento Annuat SEssion 


other than War Funds collected ($598,573.08). No less patriotie was 
the Junior Red Cross, with its 210 Auxiliaries and 41,667 members in 
North Carolina, for in addition to many other articles and funds sup- 
plied and services rendered, it contributed a total of 10,229 articles for 
hospitals and for soldiers’ and sailors’ wear. 

One of the most valuable services performed by these chapters, because 
of the immediate needs and far-reaching results, was the work of the 
Home Service Sections, which were organized by well-nigh every chap- 
ter in the State. Only twelve of the chapters had trained workers; the 
remainder had untrained, volunteer workers. How many a sick or dis- 
abled soldier, how many a despairing wife, how many a destitute family 
were aided by these angels of mercy! Cut these figures and they will 
bleed: between October 1, 1917, and August 1, 1919, 22,599 families 
in North Carolina have been assisted by Home Service Sections in 

various ways, and $29,309.47 has been given or loaned in money relief 
to these families. 

And how shall I find onde to tell the romantic story of the Canteen 
Service in North Carolina during the Great War! Where all towns 
were ready and willing it seems invidious to mention those specifically 
set down in the official report because of their relation to lines of trafic. 
In North Carolina, with some 800 workers engaged, a million men were 
served. But if I have hitherto deluged you with figures I shall spare 
you now a catalog of the tens of thousands of gallons of coffee, hundreds 
of thousands of sandwiches, iced drinks, slices of cake, packets of candy, 
and bundles of fruits—not to mention the millions of cigarettes—with 
which the doughboys were deluged, to the delight of their hearts and the 
gratification of their palates. 

If time permitted I would gladly say something of the devoted ork 
of the individual chapters of the Red Cross in the State. A word only 
of this chapter or that is possible; but the patriotism, devotion and 
service of all were alike, and, alike, unquestioned. Lieutenant House 
will eventually narrate the full story and give due credit to each and all. 
Permit me to say, however, that the canteen work of the Raleigh chapter 
was probably without a parallel in North Carolina; for up to July 1, 
1919, the Raleigh Canteen served 255,000 American soldiers. The 
devoted work of these women—in snow and ice, heat and cold, at noon 
and at midnight—under the leadership of Mrs. J. J. Bernard, is now 
a part of North Carolina’s history; and thousands of soldiers will never 
forget the cheer, the comfort and the sympathy which they dispensed. 
I cannot refrain from paying tribute in passing to the indefatigable 
labors and crusading enthusiasm of the president of this great chapter, 
Mrs. William B. Grimes. 


Srate Lirprary anpD HistoricaL AssocrATION 89 


The campaign for contributions by tobacco growers, engineered by 
such chapters as Goldsboro, Reidsville and Pitt County, for example— 
each tobacco grower being asked to contribute a pile of his crop—were 
particularly characteristic of this section, as was also the campaign for 
cotton which was carried out successfully by the Cleveland County 
chapter. And I cannot leave unmentioned the letter (24 Rue Borghese, 
Neuilly, February 12, 1916) written by King Albert’s sister, Henriette, 
Duchess of Vendome, to some ladies of Tryon, thanking them “for 
the splendid gifts you have so generously sent, and we all express our 
warmest, most heartfelt thanks to the ‘Florence Nightingale Band.’ 
Your charity is helping us‘to tend our poor men—all ‘grands Dlessés.’ 
May God bless and reward you for the good and generous help sent to 
our dear and valiant men.” If time permitted I would gladly tell of 
the memorable war work of the women’s colleges in North Carolina— 
of the State Normal College, the recognized leader among North Caro- 
lina colleges in organizing and stimulating women’s war work, through 
which more than 400 women passed on their way into government 
service; of the many women’s colleges of Raleigh which were among 
the foremost in their pledge and their performance; of the Greensboro 
College for Women, Salem Academy and College, and many others, too 
numerous to enumerate. 

Certain features of the work accomplished by the women of North 
‘Carolina are so conspicuous, indeed I may almost say spectacular, in 
value and efficiency, that I feel impelled to speak of them in some detail. 
I have already spoken of the Red Cross War Fund Drives; but para- 
mount even to these in importance were the great Drives for Liberty 
Loans and the Fifth, the Victory Loan, imperatively needed for carry- 
ing on the work of the government itself and supplying the very sinews 
of war. The National Woman’s Liberty Loan Committee, created by 
the Secretary of the Treasury, began its business as the first and only 
executive committee of women in the Government of the United States. 
The organization was not effected in time to do active work.in the 
First Liberty Loan Drive; but by the time the Second Liberty Loan 
Drive was launched North Carolina was ready to stand side by side 
with other States to do her part. Mrs. R. J. Reynolds, of Winston-Salem, 
was State Chairman during the Second Liberty Loan Campaign; and 
upon her resignation immediately thereafter, Mrs. R. H. Latham, of 
Winston-Salem, was appointed to undertake the heavy task. Mrs. 
Latham held the chairmanship through the Third and Fourth Drives, 
after which she was compelled to resign because of overtaxed eyesight. 
Mrs. John A. Long, of Kinston, succeeded Mrs. Latham and served 


90 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


through the Victory Loan Drive. The figures which follow are eloquent 
of the spirit of North Carolina and of the devoted labors of her women 
to aid the goverment to full extent of their powers. 


Srconp Liserty Loan 


Total Number of Subscribers... . oo. 600 « oinicls «sls aie 4,228 
Total Amount Subseribed..... 0... ..05. +005. seule $4,846,900 - 


Turrp Liserty Loan 


Total Amount Subscribed... ....... 0000.00.00 00s $7,887,750 
Amount Subscribed by Women...........0+0 esse eeeeeees $823,100 


Fourtru Lirserty Loan 


Total ‘Quota suey. eo PA EPR aI oe $39,900,000 
Amount Subseribed Through Women............++2ee00- $14,129,300 
being 35 per cent of the whole. 


Firra, or Victory Loan 


Total Number of Bonds Sold. ...........5..00. cee eee ee 9,281 
Total Amount Subscribed. ....... 50.4050. see $7,576,500 


No figures, however impressive, can tell the truly thrilling and touch- 
ing story of this splendid outburst of patriotic fervor. I, personally, 
have known a farmer of small means, ordinarily saving to miserliness, 
go to the bank with face positively lit as by an inner flame and cheer- 
fully borrow a thousand dollars on his little farm to invest in War 
Savings Stamps. Mrs. Long tells me of an old woman who joyously 
invested her entire life-time savings in a hundred-dollar bond, buying 
it with a thousand dimes unearthed from an old jug buried beneath the 
floor of her little cottage. While it is true that the women were not 
especially organized in the War Savings Campaigns, we all know that 
they did magnificent local work in personal canvass and in giving in- 
spiration to the general movement. Says Mr. F. H. Fries, State 
Director, War Savings Campaign: “To the women of North Carolina 
acknowledgement must be made for their most excellent service to the 
War Savings Cause. Club women, school teachers, home demonstration 
agents, housewives—they all fell into the work heart and ‘body. Mrs. 
Clarence Johnson, President of the North Carolina Federation of 
Women’s Clubs, was constantly promoting War Savings. A large ma- 
jority of the War Savings societies was organized by women. Thrift 
gardens were the special care of country women. During the June Drive 
a colored woman in Warren County, a school teacher, by herself 


Srate Lirerary AND HisroricaL AssocIATION 91 


secured $1,500 in pledges. Without the women’s aid the War Savings 
record of North Carolina would be far short of what it is.” 

A conspicuous and remarkable feature of the work of North Carolina 
women in the Great War, indicative of the type of service women are 
most particularly qualified to render, was their participation in War 
Camp Community Service. Its bases were sound and permanent, for 
peace as well as for war; and were solidly laid by organizations funda- 
mentally concerned in play, outdoor and recreational activities for the 
American youth. The War Department Commission on Training 
Camp Activities summoned the Playground and Recreation Association 
of America to develop and organize social and recreational resources in 
the neighborhood of training camps’(May 9, 1917); and from this 
action sprang the incomparable War Camp Community Service. As 
Miss Margaret Berry, an efficient laborer in this service, well says: 
“The insignia of the organization, the Red Circle, soon became to the 
service men of the army and navy as the beacon light to the mariner, 
and the War Camp Community Service slogan ‘Surround the Camp 
with Hospitality,’ was literally enacted in more than 600 American com- 
munities.” The national budget for the year ending October 31, 1919, 
was $15,000,000; and in the 300 or more Red Circle club houses, some 
2,500,000 uniformed men were provided with sleeping accommodations 
in 1918 alone. 

In North Carolina, perhaps the most extraordinary, prolonged and 
unceasing efforts to entertain the soldiers and to surround them with 
the influences of home, were made at Charlotte, the city nearest Camp 
Greene, which had during its existence numbers of soldiers ranging from 
two thousand to sixty thousand. During the late autumn of 1917, for 
example, the ladies of Charlotte entertained repeatedly at home meals 
on Sundays between 3,000 and 4,000 soldiers from Camp Greene. But 
equally devoted and faithful work was done at Raleigh, Wilmington, 
Fayetteville and Southport, though on a somewhat lesser scale because 
of smaller bodies of soldiers encamped nearby; and the work of the 
women of Asheville was of a peculiarly memorable type, especially 
in the form of ministrations and gifts to the sick soldiers at Kenilworth, 
and other rest and recuperative locations. The W. C. C. S. at Raleigh, 
Charlotte and elsewhere were along similar lines—various forms of 
entertainment afforded the soldiers: concerts, movies, dances, the hos- 
pitality of city clubs, city churches and Red Circle Clubs supplying 
libraries of books and magazines to the soldiers, and in general throwing 
around the boys in the camps the home atmosphere of fireside, friend- 
ship and innocent enjoyment. In this brief survey I regret that space 
does not permit me to take account of innumerable individual and cor- 


92 NineteentoH Annuat SzEssion 


porate acts of hospitality, such as the gifts of the ladies of Statesville 
to Camp Greene, the work of the women through the churches, notably 
the memorable work at the Church of the Good Shepherd, “first to 
provide for Camp Polk, last to stop.” Particular record should be 
made of the fine work of Miss Mary F. De Vane as Director for North 
Carolina of the American Library Association. In addition to one 
thousand dollars in money raised for the purchase of books, twenty-five 
thousand volumes were collected and distributed to the soldiers and 
sailors in this country and abroad. It was “a wonderful collection of 
beautiful books and a credit to the State.” 

Mr. Herbert Hoover asserted again and again, “Food will win the 
war.” The story of the able work of the Food Administrator is a 
familiar one to all of us; and in the Home Demonstration work and 
Girls’ Clubs, Mrs. Jane McKimmon has attracted the admiring eyes 
of the nation to this State. Mrs. Maude Radford Warren’s glowing 
account of that work, which appeared in The Country Gentleman, 
must speak in lieu of any extended account of my own. ‘The magni- 
tude of Mrs. McKimmon’s labors is evidenced ‘by her report for 1918, 
during which year 8,807 food demonstrations were given and 8,250 
meetings held, with an attendance of 826,283 people. In the organized 
clubs 16,663 women and girls did intensive conservation work, and as 
additional club workers there were 4,744 colored women organized in 
twenty counties. Exclusive of the unprecedented amount of work in 
the conserving of foodstuffs, vegetables and fruit, carried on by the can- 
ning clubs, there were 132 community canneries in operation in 1918, 
with an approximate output of 357,688 cans; and during the same year 
a total of 228,903 pounds of fruit and vegetables dried is reported. I 
must leave to others to tell the stirring stories of home demonstration 
work in the mill villages, the work among the colored people, the per- 
ennial campaign for gardens. Of all the figures at my disposal perhaps 
the most impressive and significant are these, for the year 1917, when 
sixty counties had been organized: 


Number girls reporting.) ea eee oe 14,382 
Viamaiber eas” oe oe ice ee erence 8,778,262 
Malue of products’. 2... 540 pee $2,179,262 
PR Oba COST odo /'s's 4.3/ak C Na eee ee ate ee $544,843 
Wotalvprofite |. 200: 1/). 20. Sa eee eee $1,634,519 


Mention deserves to be made of the devoted work of the North Caro- 
lina women who served as County and City Food Administrators; and 
I have particularly in mind Mrs. Chamberlain for Wake, Miss Walker 
for Scotland, and Mrs. Young for Winston-Salem. 


Sratm Lirerary anp HistoricaLt AssocraTION 93 


Another band of splendid workers who rendered valiant service at 
home and abroad was the Young Woman’s Christian Association, so 
enthusiastically sponsored and energetically aided in its work by Mrs. 
Josephus Daniels. Of knowledge and pride to every North Carolinian 
was the honor paid to Mrs. Thomas W. Bickett in being chosen one of 
the commissioners sent by the Y. W. C. A. to Europe to study at “The 
Front,” the needs and problems of the people during reconstruction. 
Upon her return Mrs. Bickett made forceful speeches in many parts of 
the State, pushing with extreme activity and vigor the work of the 
Y. W. C. A. in North Carolina. 

In connection with women’s work during the war I must not forget 
to mention their business and executive work, as illustrated, for exam- 
ple, by Miss Harriet Berry, of Chapel Hill, who during the two years’ 
absence of Col. Joseph H. Pratt inthe army, was acting head of the 
North Carolina Geological Survey, Secretary of the North Carolina 
Good Roads Association, chairman for women in Orange County for 
the four Liberty Loans, and Chairman of the Committee on Women 
in Industry, North Carolina Council of Defense. 

It is too soon for me, or for anyone, to paint in true colors or give 
in even measurable exactitude, any account which would do justice to 
the blessed and merciful work of the nurses who labored in the camps 
and hospitals, here or abroad, who went forward into the deadly danger 
zones, and with the calmness of beings from some higher realm per- 
formed their services of beneficence, their errands of mercy, to the ac- 
companiment of the cannon’s roar. Up to October 1, 1918, the A. R. C. 
alone enrolled during the war more than 30,000 nurses, and more than 
400 served in England, France, Italy, Russia, Greece and Palestine. 

Many nurses went into national service from this state; their names 
will forever constitute an especial roll of honor. Two medical units 
of special service and distinction went from this state, one under Dr. 
Addison Brenizer, of Charlotte, and the other under Dr. John Wesley 
Long, of Greensboro. An excerpt from the account of Base Hospital 
No. 65, kindly supplied me by Dr. Long, Lieut. Col. M. C., U. S. A. 
(Ret.), will give a vivid picture of this splendid type of service: 

“Base Hospital No. 65 was organized by the writer, with the assistance 
of some other medical men under authority granted directly by the Surgeon 
General of the United States Army. One of the requirements specified by 
the War Department was that the personnel be secured from North Carolina. 
Whereupon we enlisted 32 medical officers, 203 enlisted men, and 100 nurses. 
It required unremitting work for many months. Ninety per cent of the 


nurses were North Carolinians, a few for certain reasons having been secured 
from elsewhere. They were all mobilized at one of the nurses’ bases in 


94 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION 

id 
New York City. They were then sent in a body to France where they joined 
Base Hospital 65 at Kerhuon, near Brest, where it remained from early in 
September, 1918, to August, 1919. 

“The work accomplished by this unit, an important part of which was the 
work done by the nurses, has gone down in the history of the War Depart- 
ment as one of unexcelled value. The Hospital handled over 40,000 patients. 

“Directly after the unit reached its location and before it was possible to 
get things in working order because of the lack of conveniences, 2,200 desper- 
ately sick patients from the transports were sent to this hospital. At this 
time there were no electric lights, only ordinary oil hand-lanterns and flash- 
lights were available. There were no walks between the buildings, of which 
there were over one hundred. The nurses had to wear rubber boots and 
wade through rain and slush. Remember that Secretary Baker said that it 
rained at Brest 330 days in a year. The hospital eventually had a capacity 
of 4,000. 

“At the time mentioned the buildings, which were of the Swiss barracks 
type, were being erected. None of them were fully equipped; many of them 
did not have even windows, and many of the beds did not have mattresses. 
One hundred nurses and 200 enlisted men were of necessity compelled to 
look after this large number of sick and dying men. Some of them were 
dying and the others dead when they moved them from the stretchers upon 
which they came. The hospital handled wounded men (blessé, as the French 
say), cases of influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy, cerebro-spinal menengitis, and 
insanity. It was a task for the stout-hearted and called for the best that 
there was in a nurse ‘to be called upon for such heroic service under such 
trying circumstances. 

“Ror instance, one night about midnight a storm swept up the harbor 
of Brest striking the hospital, which was at the head of the harbor, with 
full force. The roof of one of the barracks containing twenty-five operative 
cases was lifted off. Out into the darkness and rain and storm the officers, 
men and nurses rushed to the rescue of the helpless patients. The engineer 
corps was called out to prop up the sides of the building to keep it from 
collapsing. Through this trying ordeal the nurses never flinched, but stood 
by us to the last with a loyalty and helpful sympathy that was beyond com- 
parison. 

‘In October, 1918, the Chief Surgeon of the American Expeditionary Forces 
called upon Base Hospital No. 65 for two operating teams to be sent to the 
front. This called for a highly trained operating room nurse for each team. 
For this important and hazardous duty I selected two splendid North Caro- 
lina girls. They went with their teams as assigned and spent many weeks 
in active duty close to the firing lines and within sound of the big guns.” 


I desire to make mention, at least—though it deserves extended treat- 
ment—of the desperate fight waged by the women and the doctors of the 
state against the insidious and deadly “Spanish Influenza.” I would 
pay immortal tribute to Miss Elizabeth Roper, situated at Chapel Hill, 
who at the height of the influenza epidemic gave up a remunerative 
position as trained nurse in a private family to minister to the Uni- 
versity boys, making the supreme sacrifice of her life for her country. 


Srarm Literary anp Histroricant AssocraTIon 95 


North Carolina has the honor of having produced the Great War’s 
most famous field nurse, and after Edith Cavell, I believe, the nurse 
most celebrated in the despatches and stories of the war from its outset. 
This is the daughter of Dr. S. Westray Battle, of Asheville, Madelon, 
who was affectionately called “Glory” by her English friends, because 
of her pride of America; they declared she was always “waving 
Old Glory.” 

At the very beginning of the conflict in 1914 she offered her services 
“for the duration of the war”; and while her husband, Colonel Han- 
cock, was serving under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, with the 
British Army in France, she was giving untiring and valiant service 
in Belgium. Because of her wonderful work in the trenches and first- 
aid dressing stations as well as in the field hospitals, the Belgian soldiers 
named her “Sister Glory Hancock.” Ever within the sound of the 
guns and frequently within their range, she stood unmoved amid showers 
of falling glass and splintered roofs; she saw hospital beds blown to 
fragments during the intense shelling to which the Germans subjected 
the Belgian towns. This noble woman who served under the British 
Red Cross, knew what it was—so steady was the stream of wounded 
after Mons and during the retreat from Antwerp—to go for a month 
without having her clothes off. “Sister Glory Hancock” had the great 
and fully merited honor of being decorated by both King George of 
England and King Albert of Belgium. With North Carolina in the 
field there was “Glory enough for all”—and all added to her glory— 
with the Croix Civique, the Order of Mons, the Croix de Guerre, and 
the badge of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. 

As we turn today to the heavy tasks of reconstruction and reorgani- 
zation of civil life, we cannot in justice forget the part played by women 
as civilians in the Great War. And I look confidently forward to a time 
in the near future when, not as a reward, but as a recognition of justice, 
the women of North Carolina, and of America, shall receive equal 
civil, legal and political rights with their partners, men, in the great 
business of making the world a better place to live in. 


Some Economic Effects of the World War 


By WILtIAM H, GLAsson 
Professor of Economics in Trinity College 


The people of the United States have all been profoundly affected in 
wealth and welfare during the past five years by causes growing out of 
the gigantic conflict between the nations of the world. Values have 
been violently disturbed by potent forces which individuals could neither 
control nor fully comprehend. Economic stability and security have 
been shaken to their foundations. We have been living in a period of 
many undeserved losses and many unmerited gains. Our ordinary ex- 
pectations as to the consequences of economic conduct have been to a 
large degree disappointed. Thrift and foresight and prudence have 
too often failed of their usual reward and suffered heartbreaking losses. 
On the other hand, the favors of fortune have been distributed with 
unusual lavishness to individuals and enterprises that were speculative, 
extravagant, and frequently unscrupulous. Some men have stood help- 
less while the forces of the economic world have caused their lifetime 
savings to shrink and have cut their real incomes in two. Others have 
seen their debts unexpectedly dwindle, while their assets have been 
swollen by a rising flood of easy profits. The political readjustment of 
the world’s affairs has involved an economic readjustment—a general 
and radical alteration of values which, when expressed in terms of 
money, has amounted to a price revolution. It is the effect of this price 
revolution upon the various classes of people of which economic society 
is composed that engages my attention in this paper. 

How far reaching has the price revolution been? Without troubling 
vou with statistical tables, it is substantially true to say that general 
commodity prices have doubled in the United States since the beginning 
of the World War. In some cases the increase has been much more; 
in others, somewhat less. The principal causes of the price revolution 
are doubtless familiar to this audience. Millions of men were with- 
drawn from their ordinary productive activities by the great nations 
of the world and engaged in the rapid consumption and destruction of 
goods. The workers left at home were to a large extent withdrawn from 
peace-time employments and set at work to produce munitions of war 
and engines of destruction rather than the regular supplies of food, 
clothing, and other commodities required by the civilian population. 
Thus a shortage of goods was produced. But, in contrast, the supply 
of money and credit to be offered in payment for goods was vastly 
increased. Some countries printed paper money lavishly. In the years 


Sratm Lirrrary anp HisroricaLt Association 97 


before we entered the war an excessive supply of gold was accumulated 
in the United States in payment for the goods sold to foreigners. This 
gold in bank reserves became the basis for expanding credits. After 
the United States entered the war, a succession of great war loans fur- 
nished the government with unlimited purchasing power with which to 
demand goods; ‘but the government war bonds in the hands of individuals 
became a gilt-edge security upon which private persons could obtain 
credits from their banks and also enter the markets as purchasers of 
raw materials, commodities, and stocks. Living in a time of scarcity of 
goods and inflated purchasing power, we have seen prices advance by 
leaps and bounds. 

If we divide the population into two general classes of creditors and 
debtors, it is clear that the cheapening of the dollar has been unfavor- 
able to creditors. The man, who loaned $5,000 ten years ago and 
receives payment of the debt today, finds the purchasing power of the 
money cut in two. He receives back command over about one-half the 
goods that his money might have purchased at the time he made the 
loan. A large class of creditors throughout the United States consists 
of savings bank depositors, and we often rejoice at the increase of 
their deposits as an indication of the thrift of the masses of our people. 
It is surely a lamentable fact that the price revolution has seriously 
impaired the fruits of past thrift. Deposits which have been slowly 
accumulated by many years of care and self-denial will, if withdrawn 
today, buy for the owner far less of the goods and necessities of life 
than when the deposits were made. The man who placed $1,000 in a 
savings bank in 1914, and who withdraws the amount today, will find 
that the dollars purchase only half as many goods as might have been 
bought in 1914. If the depositor had invested his $1,000 in non-perish- 
able commodities in 1914, they might, on the contrary, be sold for more 
than $2,000 today. The annual increase in prices has far more than 
offset the modest interest paid the depositor for his funds. If the 
present level of prices is long to continue, there can be no doubt that 
the savings bank depositors of the past have suffered a real and per- 
manent loss in the power of their funds to aid them in meeting the 
needs of the proverbial “rainy day.” However, if we are to assume 
that the purchasing power of the dollar will be gradually restored, some 
of the loss may be replaced to those who can afford to wait, and cheap 
dollars deposited now may be returned in dollars of greater purchasing 
power in future years. 

Holders of insurance policies and their beneficiaries form another 
class of creditors who have suffered an unmerited loss through the 


price revolution. The policyholder whose long term endowment con- 
7 


98 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


tract becomes payable during the present year, receives the number of 
dollars agreed upon, but their purchasing power in providing for the 
declining years of his life is gravely disappointing. Widows and 
orphans find that insurance benefits, which would a few years ago 
have provided an income adequate for their support, are pitifully small 
in meeting present living expenses. The dollars that are now being 
received in payment of insurance claims have an exchange value in the 
commodity markets far inferior to that of the dollars paid through 
long years as premiums. But, for the man who takes a new policy 
in these days of cheap dollars, there is perhaps a more encouraging 
prospect. By the time that such a policy becomes a claim payable 
by the company, dollars may have become more valuable and their 
former purchasing power may have been partly or wholly restored. 
However, if prices remain on the present level, it is clear that the 
protection afforded by the older policies of our insurance companies 
has been cut in two. 

Another illustration of damage done to creditors is found in the 
present position and problems of our colleges and universities. These 
institutions have usually invested their funds according to the most 
conservative financial judgment in bonds or other similar securities 
bearing a fixed rate of interest over long periods of years. Their money 
return on old endowment funds is precisely the same as it was in low 
price days. But, if their teachers are to live respectably and maintain 
families under present conditions, salaries must be largely increased. 
Running expenses for fuel, books, supplies, and upkeep of plants are 
doubled. Though the income of a college may be as large in dollars as 
before the war, it will not suffice to maintain the institution even on 
the old scale. With students crowding all our universities and colleges 
in numbers never before known, the old endowments are doubly inade- 
quate. The situation has brought urgent appeals for new endowments 
from nearly all the leading universities of the country. An educational 
institution that does not exert itself to gain new resources to meet 
the present emergency is lacking in vitality and vision. Harvard asks 
for $15,000,000, Cornell for $10,000,000, Princeton, Columbia and 
others for amounts proportionate to their estimated needs. The South 
should not lag behind in this matter. In our own state the publicly 
owned and privately endowed institutions of learning should receive 
liberal additions to their funds from alumni, from taxpayers, or from 
private benefactors, if we are to train effectively for useful citizenship 
the young men and women of the commonwealth. 

I might go on to give other illustrations of individuals and insti- 
tutions that have suffered by the fall in the value of the dollar. Pos- 


Strate Lirrrary anp Hisroricat Association 99 


sibly some of those present here have in mind relatives or friends, 
unable to play an active part in business life, who have been living 
on the income of funds invested in supposedly safe and conservative 
securities, bearing a fixed rate of interest. Seven or eight years ago 
these securities seemed gilt edged, and the income they produced was 
adequate for the support of the owners. Now such investors may 
receive precisely the same income in dollars, but they can command 
a real income only half as large in food, clothing, and shelter. Influ- 
ences beyond human foresight and control have destroyed the fruits 
of past saving. If funds have been placed in the bonds of some of 
our standard railroads, formerly considered only second to government 
or municipal bonds in safety, very likely a great shrinkage in the 
market value of the invested principal has also been experienced, due 
to the fact that many of the leading railroads of the country have 
avoided receiverships only by aid of a government guarantee of earn- 
ings which may soon be withdrawn. 

The extreme rise of prices has brought depression or disaster to 
railroads, local traction companies, and other public utility enterprises 
whose rates for service are fixed by law, by franchise, or by some goy- 
ernmental commission. With employees demanding greatly increased 
wages to meet the higher cost of living, with current expenses for fuel, 
repairs, replacements, and maintenance doubled, a business which is 
not permitted to increase its charges to the public is in a difficult plight. 
This is well illustrated in Greater New York where the local traction 
companies operating under a five-cent fare have experienced financial 
collapse and their security holders are bearing severe losses. The rail- 
roads have been permitted to make considerable advances in rates, but 
in general such advances have been by no means adequate to cover the 
increased expenses of operation and maintenance. For the time being, 
a government guarantee of earnings throws upon the public treasury 
the burden of part of the railroad losses. But the uncertainty of the 
continuance of the guarantee, and new demands for wage advances, 
make the future of the transportation companies precarious. 

Earners of wages and salaries are creditors for the amount of their 
money compensation, and it is to their interest that the purchasing 
power of money be maintained. Usually wage increases lag far behind 
increases in the prices of commodities, and the workers experience loss 
accordingly. The extraordinary circumstances of the present price 
inflation have, however, saved many classes of wage earners from harm 
and have to a considerable extent given them a positive gain. The 
government called millions of men from the ranks of industry into the 
army and thereby created a scarcity of labor. But there were as many 


100 NuveteentH Annvuat SzEssion 


mouths to be fed and as many backs to be clothed as ever. In addition 
tremendous amounts of military work had to be done in pressing haste. 
To get quick results in the most urgent work, the government became 
a lavish employer paying extraordinary compensation. Private indus- 
try had to pay corresponding prices or lose its working force. Con- 
sequently, during the recent period of rising prices, the wages of com- 
mon laborers and of many classes of artisans were promptly increased 
in a manner to offset, or more than offset, the increase in the cost of 
living. Where production was urgently needed, strikes, or the threat of 
strikes, were quickly effective in securing increases of wages. Many 
laborers and artisans, indeed, now find themselves more prosperous than 
ever before. 

But the adjustment of wages and salaries to the new level of prices 
has been, in many occupations and professions, slow, uneven, illogical, 
and inadequate. Many physical and mental workers are today resentful 
or discontented because they feel that they have unjustly lost ground 
in comparison with other classes as respects their relative position in 
economic society. We live in a day when plumbers and bricklayers and 
iron workers are frequently better compensated than librarians and 
ministers and college professors. In some cities the janitor who sweeps 
out the school-rooms and feeds the furnace is better paid than many 
of the teachers who train the minds of the pupils. All over the country 
there are salaried workers in positions of varying degrees of importance 
who are feeling the pinch of the effort to make a slightly increased 
salary meet the demands of a greatly increased living cost. Officials. 
and employees of national, state, and municipal governments have very 
generally not received increases adequate to maintain their former 
standard of living under the new conditions. However heartily we 
may agree that policemen and firemen and other guardians of the public 
safety cannot be permitted to strike, we should see to it that some other 
method is found for doing justice to their claims for increased com- 
pensation. Even high officers of the federal government and of great 
states are finding themselves ground between the upper and nether mill- 
stones of high cost of living and constitutional or statutory limitations 
upon the increase of salaries. They will not starve, they only occa- 
sionally resign, but their efficiency is doubtless lessened by the difficul- 
ties of their economic situation. 

So far I have dwelt in the main upon the losses of classes of people 
who have been hurt by the price revolution. There is another tale to 
tell. While rapidly rising prices of commodities and labor have harmed 
creditors, the burden of debtors has been lightened. Merchants, manu- 
facturers, contractors, and the directors of industry are usually debtors 


Strate Lirrrary anp Hisrortcat Association 101 


doing business with money borrowed on long or short term securities. 
To them the unprecedented expansion of the money and credit supply 
has meant a brisk demand for their goods at rapidly rising prices. To 
be sure raw materials and wages have advanced, but many concerns 
have been so fortunate as to own large reserve supplies of raw mate- 
rials. If costs have been rising, prices of finished products have been 
rising faster. The great gains made by many of our industrial corpora- 
tions have meant increased dividends and largely enhanced market 
values for their stocks. Thus the fortunate owners who bought at a 
lower level have reaped easy profits. 

Merchants who bought stocks of goods at lower price levels have 
been enabled to dispose of them at profits far beyond their most opti- 
mistic expectations. Buying new stocks on higher levels, they have 
been able to mark up the goods and get their price from a public afraid 
that even higher prices would rule in the near future. Price advances 
have been made easy by the presence in the market of large classes of 
careless or inexperienced buyers with more money to spend than ever 
before in their lives. The existence of such buyers has increased the 
difficulties of the situation for those who are obliged to satisfy their 
needs upon the basis of incomes which have not been increased. 

Such prosperity in business circles promotes expansion. A general 
spirit of optimism is produced. Active business men are likely to be 
well content with abundant profits in dollars. Projects for recapital- 
ization and expansion, for the construction of new mills and factories, 
and for a further reaching out after trade are set on foot. The profits 
of conservative industries overflow into industries of a more speculative 
character, and the danger is that the enkindled imagination of those 
who have enjoyed great profits may lead them to misdirect capital into 
enterprises that will finally fall with a crash. 

The price revolution is a boon to our farmers and planters—the 
directors of agricultural industry. Old prices for the products of the 
farm are doubled, or tripled, and sometimes even quadrupled. Though 
agricultural labor is scarce and its wages high, though the farmer pays 
more for machinery and fertilizers and manufactured goods, yet on the 
whole he is a great gainer in this era of high prices. This is the time 
to pay off the farm mortgage. The farmer who mortgaged his land 
for $3,000 when cotton was $75 a bale received the equivalent of forty 
bales of cotton. Now, if his cotton brings $150 a bale or more, he can 
pay off the debt by selling twenty bales or less. 

Naturally the great increase of farm profits and the amount of agri- 
cultural and other gains seeking investment have caused in some parts 
of the country an extensive speculation in farm lands. Prices are 


102 NineteentH AnNnuAL SEssIon 


often reached which even present agricultural profits do not justify, and 
the chances are that, if the present prices of farm products seriously 
decline, some owners will have farms on their hands which will not pay 
a fair income on the investment. 

Just now the conflict in the economic interest of city dwellers and 
farmers is particularly striking. Railroad employees, salaried men, and 
the millions of wage earners in our great cities are crying out for 
cheaper bread, meat, milk, eggs, cotton and woolen cloth, and other 
household staples. The railroad brotherhoods have stated with great 
force that the cost of living must come down or their wages must again 
be increased. But the producers of cotton, cattle, milk, grain, sugar, 
fruits and other agricultural products are combining to keep prices up, 
and even in some cases to withhold their products from the markets 
unless further price advances can be obtained. This struggle of con- 
flicting interests places the government in a dilemma. Shall it come 
to the aid of the city dwellers, or shall it look with favor upon the 
efforts of producers to maintain high prices? Either policy may cause 
political opposition. Just now the federal government is favoring the 
urban populations and using many means to depress prices. But the 
same governmental sale of army supplies which cuts in two the cost of 
my winter’s stock of bacon and provides my family with cheap army 
blankets may well lessen the profits of producers of pork and wool. 
The governments of our agricultural states are more apt to use their 
forces in behalf of the farmers, who have great political power, and 
the minority of town dwellers must cope with the high prices as well 
as they can. 

One direction in which the failure of prompt adjustment to the new 
level of costs is causing great distress is in the matter of housing in 
our towns and cities. Rents of houses and apartments rise slowly and 
after much friction and resistance. City dwellers whose salaries have 
been only moderately increased can with difficulty meet demands for 
higher rentals. Consequently the prospect of gain is not sufficiently 
attractive to stimulate the erection of many new houses at the present 
costs of labor and building materials. Many families are thus com- 
pelled to live in overcrowded and uncomfortable quarters. The situa- 
tion gives old houses a decided scarcity value. Nominally the owners 
are made richer. But there is much danger of illusion here. Perhaps 
before the war the assessors valued my residence at $4,000 and I con- 
sidered it worth $8,000—what it had cost me. Now I am offered 
$15,000 for it, because houses are very scarce, and it cannot be dupli- 
cated for less. I may consider that the price revolution has added 
$7,000 to my wealth, and my frame of mind may be very optimistic. 


Srate Lirrrary ann HistroricaLt AssocraTIon 103 


But after all I have only precisely the same house. My real wealth 
in house has not changed. If I sell the property for $15,000, I shall 
probably have to spend the whole amount to provide my family with 
an equally good house. If I invest the money in other goods than 
houses, they will probably cost twice as much as before the war. Where 
is my real gain? Doubtless we shall many of us feel richer if under 
the present era of tax reform all of our real estate and personal 
properties are placed on the tax books at 100 per cent of present inflated 
values in dollars. But, if we continue to own the same houses and 
chattels and personal possessions, our real riches will be precisely the 
same as before. 

It is probably a fact that handling more money—more counters— 
often creates a feeling of prosperity and ability to spend which, in 
the long run, leads to extravagance and debt. We hear from many 
sides that people are buying regardless of prices, that many persons 
will no longer accept low priced articles. The bricklayer who made 
$18 a week a few years ago may feel that, with $35 to $40 a week 
now, he is in a position to have what he wants. But when he comes 
to the realization that his rent has been increased, his grocery bill 
doubled, that milk for his children costs two or three times as much 
as before the war, that shoes and clothing have ascended to prices not 
before known in his lifetime, he will be undeceived as to his real 
economic position. Probably he will strike for higher wages. If he 
succeeds, he will increase costs to somebody else. In the meantime 
extravagant and unintelligent spending has made the situation im- 
mensely more difficult for mental and physical workers who are strug- 
gling to meet a 100 per cent increase in prices with a 10 or 20 per cent 
increase in income. It often requires considerable moral courage today 
to compare prices and qualities before buying and to object to undue 
profits in the face of the dealer’s condescending assertion: ‘“That is 
what we are getting,” or that equally odious saying: “They are sure 
to be much higher next season.” 

Some economists tell us that we are on a permanently higher level 
of prices which will not be much reduced in a generation. If this is 
true, there are many persons living under a pleasant delusion. Sup- 
pose that you were worth $10,000 before the war and that you have 
prospered and now count your wealth as $20,000. You may be par- 
doned for feeling complacent, but what have you really gained? On 
the present scale of prices you are hardly richer at all. Twenty thou- 
sand dollars will do little, if any, more in buying houses, food, cloth- 
ing, and the necessities and luxuries of life than would $10,000 before 


104 NuveteentH AnnuaL SEssiIon 


the war. And, if you are so unfortunate as to be able to command 
only the same number of dollars as before, you have actually been 
impoverished one-half in purchasing power. 

In conclusion I want to contrast 1896 with 1919 and to point out 
that prices move in cycles. At that time the gold dollar had been 
appreciating in value year by year, and the burden of all debtors was 
increased. The South and the West were suffering from the low price 
of their cotton and wheat. The silver bullion in the silver dollar was 
not worth fifty cents. There were charges that moneyed interests had 
conspired to oppress the masses of the people and that mankind was 
being “crucified on a cross of gold.” How the situation has been 
reversed in less than a quarter of a century! Gold has been cheapened 
in comparison with practically all other goods. The depreciation of the 
dollar has lightened the burdens of all debtors. The farmers of the 
South and West are selling their cotton and wheat and corn at prices 
that mean comfort and prosperity. Even the formerly despised silver 
dollar has a bullion value of more than a dollar in gold, and fears are 
expressed that it is becoming so precious that it will be withdrawn 
from circulation and melted down for its bullion. This reversal illus- 
trates the extreme instability of our monetary measure of values and 
shows that we live under a monetary system which falls far short of 
doing ideal justice to all. But, if such a change can occur in less than 
twenty-five years, may we not believe that when the world is again 
fully and efficiently organized for production the supply of goods and 
commodities may be greatly increased in relation to the supply of 
money and credit? The gold production of the world has already been 
checked by the increased cost of gold mining. Expanded credits of 
the nations of the world may gradually be contracted. With the pros- 
pect of renewed abundance of all sorts of goods and a possible con- 
traction of money and credit, may not those who suffer from the high 
prices of today at least hope for a gradual descent to lower levels 
which will bring them better fortune in future years? 


The Preservation of North Carolina’s World War Records 


By R. B. House C_— 
Collector of World War Records for the North Carolina Historical Commission 

The significance of the World War and the period of reconstruction 
in the life of North Carolina is self-evident. In particular it needs 
no stressing before a body of people acquainted with historical values. 
What North Carolina did in the World War is one of the most mar- 
velous achievements in history. What the World War did in North 
Carolina is likewise a most thorough social revolution. 

The importance of preserving the records of this achievement and 
of this social revolution is likewise self-evident. It is a duty we owe 
both to ourselves and to posterity. We owe it to ourselves because we 
must get at the facts of these events in order to understand the forces 
operating in the affairs of the day. Also we owe it to ourselves to 
preserve the records of these times as a monument. Imperfect agents 
though we may be, we are nevertheless bringing about the most mo- 
mentous events in the life of the nation. Just as the people who 
brought about the Revolutionary and the Civil wars deserve remem- 
bering, so do we deserve remembering. We owe it to posterity because 
the forces now operating will bring about the conditions under which 
they will live. They cannot understand their daily affairs without 
understanding the origins of these affairs in the present upheaval. 
And they cannot understand these origins unless we preserve for them 
the records of these times. A people must know its past to know its 
present. This body of knowledge is history, and it is preserved in 
documents. 

The time for hearsay evidence and makeshift study has passed away 
with the passing of verbal tradition. This is an age of written records, 
because conditions demand an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of 
facts. Memory and tradition are too untrustworthy, too open to 
prejudice to preserve the accurate records of these times that future 
generations will demand. Without written records the significance of 
these times will surely fade from the memories of men, or, even worse, 
will be distorted and misshapen by their prejudices. History is pre- 
served in documents. It is studied and written from documents. With- 
out documents there can be no history. A document is anything that 
preserves evidence of the thoughts, emotions, experiences, and actions 
of men. For instance, if a man goes through a revolution in thought 
or feeling and during the time of this revolution writes about his 
experiences in a letter to his friend, this letter is a document pre- 


106 NineteentH AnNuAL SEssion 


serving evidence of this revolution. Examples may be multiplied, and 
other examples of documents preserving North Carolina’s World War 
Record will be given below. 

These documents appear in four great classes: as printed matter, 
such as books, newspapers, addresses, catalogues, programs; as manu- 
scripts, such as the minutes of a meeting, letters, diaries; as pictures, 
such as kodak pictures, photographs, paintings, posters; as mementoes, 
such as badges, medals, insignia. 

The war touched every department of life in North Carolina, and 
left evidence of its effect in innumerable documents. To understand, 
therefore, just what should be preserved as documents of the times, let 
us consider the progress of the war in the life of the State, and indi- 
cate the records preserving the history of this progress. 

From August, 1914, to August, 1917, was the period of formation 
of opinion. People were shocked that war could come in society 
apparently opposed to it. Sermons were preached about it in the 
churches; lectures were held on it in the halls; debates were held on it 
in the schools; letters passed from friend to friend telling of emotions, 
thoughts, and experiences. These sermons, lectures, debates, and let- 
ters should be preserved. 

North Carolina boys such as Kiffin and Paul Rockwell, James Mc- 
Connell, and James Menzies began to fight with the Allies—the pioneers. 
of America in the field. Men and women began to go as nurses and 
welfare workers to the stricken countries. The letters exchanged 
between these pioneers and their home-folks should be carefully pre- 
served. War sufferers appealed in numerous forms to the pity of North 
Carolinians. Armenian Relief, Syrian Relief, Belgian Relief, French 
Relief, designate a few of the societies of mercy that sprang up in 
every community. Records of these societies should all be preserved, 
not only the records of the society as a national organization, but as a 
community organization as well. 

Then we entered the war. Boys left the neighborhood to go into 
the army, the navy, and aviation; into Officers’ Training Camps, the 
cantonments, the tented camps. The letters of these boys in camp to 
their home folks and the letters of their home folks to them indicate 
the reaction of the State to actual war. 

In each county local churches and fraternal orders began to exert 
themselves in new ways of service. A whole crop of new organizations 
sprang up—such as the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the War Camp 
Community Service, and the like. New forms of governmental organ- 
ization appeared—the first awkward machinery of the draft and then 
the local boards, the Council of Defense, the Food Administration, the 


Srarre Lirprary anp HistroricaL AssocraTIon 107 


Fuel Administration, and so on. Official records of these organizations 
should all be preserved. Anecdotes about them should be put in writing. 

Then, almost overnight, our boys were in the fighting. New fields 
of experience appeared in their letters home, and in their letters from 
home. People who a few years before had never thought of France or 
England now had close friends in all parts of these countries. The 
letters that went back and forth during these times are invaluable 
documents. 

Then came the influenza epidemic, the armistice, the home-coming, 
the readjustment, the problems of the present. All of these events 
reflect themselves in countless forms, all of which should be preserved. 

So important did it deem the preservation of records of these times 
that every nation involved in the war made elaborate plans to collect 
full records. France had historians transcribing events on the very 
field of battle, and artists commemorating them even while they were 
transpiring. The United States likewise has assembled a most com- 
plete system of records of the nation. 

But no such adequate provisions were made by the individual States 
to collect records while they were being made. The problem that con- 
fronts each State, therefore, is to turn now to the task of preserving 
records pertaining to itself before these records have been lost. 

North Carolina, among other States, has provided by law for the 
collection of her war records, and the preparation of a history of the 
State during these times. The General Assembly has enjoined this 
task on the Historical Commission. 

The Historical Commission has employed a collector of war records, 
has organized machinery for collecting material in each county of the 
State, and from the State departments. It has associated itself with 
like organizations from other States in the National Association of 
State War History Organizations for the purpose of mutual assistance 
in obtaining materials from Washington and other central depositories. 

The full details of this organization of collecting, the full description 
of materials wanted, are matters too voluminous for the province of 
this paper. Bulletins on the work have been issued, which will be 
furnished on application. But in spite of these efforts on the part of 
the State and the Nation, the attempt to preserve documents of the war 
is likely to fail unless the people bestir themselves individually and 
collectively to preserve records of value now in their hands. 

In some eases people are ignorant that the Historical Commission 
wants just such materials as they have. In cleaning out their desks and 
offices they destroy papers that cannot be replaced. Official after 
official of this or that organization has destroyed his correspondence 


108 NuineteentH Annuan SEssion 


simply to get it out of the way. This could have been sent to the 
Historical Commission for a few cents and five minutes time. 

On the other hand, people know that the Historical Commission is 
seeking materials such as they may have—letters and pictures for 
instance. But they deem their private collections so small as to be of 
no importance. They should remember that no contribution is too 
small to be of value. The accumulation of small collections is the only 
way to make a large one. 

People sometimes realizing the importance of documents they may 
have, are reluctant to give them up because they want to keep a private 
collection. In this case they should give the Historical Commission 
copies of these documents, or lend the original to the Historical Com- 
mission long enough to have copies made. This applies to print, manu- 
script, or picture. i 

People, again, are reluctant to give documents because they contain 
intimate personal matters; particularly do they feel this way about 
giving letters. They should remember that these personal matters 
fade out in time, and that the historian reading the letter will not be 
interested in such things. At any rate, they can edit the copies they 
give so as to suppress matters they do not wish to make public. 

To sum up. Preservation of North Carolina’s World War Records 
is a duty we owe both to ourselves and to posterity. The facts of a 
time so important as this must be preserved. These facts are preserved 
in documents of all sorts, but falling in four great classes: print, 
manuscript, pictures, and mementoes. Formation of opinion about the 
war, war relief work, fighting in the war, working at home to win the 
war, readjusting our lives to the revolution brought on by the war, 
are all experiences that have recorded themselves in countless forms. 
To preserve these recorded experiences is the special effort of the His- 
torical Commission, and to co-operate with the Historical Commission 
is the privilege and duty of every citizen of North Carolina. Give what 
you have, get your neighbors to give, and organize your community in 
an effort to preserve records of value. 


North Carolina Bibliography, December, 1917—November 1919 


By Mary B. PALMER 


Director North Carolina Library Commission 


NEW PUBLICATIONS 


ABBREVIATIONS AND SyMBoLs: c., copyright; il., illustrated; p., pages; 
y., volume. The capital letters, D. O. Q. S. T., refer to the size of 
the books. 


Auten, Wiriiam Cicero. History of Halifax county. O.235p. il. 
Cornhill Co., 1918. $2.50. 


Arco, Forpycr Hvssarp. Jesus’ idea; a study of the real Jesus. 
(Library of religious thought). D.282p. Badger, 1916. $1.50. 
Accidentally omitted from previous list. 


Bassett, Joun Spencer. The lost fruits of Waterloo; views on a 
_league of nations. D.289p. Macmillan, 1918. $1.50. 

A presentation of the arguments for and the obstacles to a federated 
peace, based on the history of Europe since 1815, and the failure of 
the “Concert of Europe” formed at that time which was not a firm 
enough federation to repress the rise of German ambition. Maintains 
that after repressing Germany, the world must form a durable federa- 
tion, as the choice lies between a “world state unified by conquest and 
a world state unified through agreement.” Index. 


Connor, R. D. W., and others. History of North Carolina. Q. 6v. il. 
Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, 1919. $30.00. 

Volume one, Colonial and Revolutionary Periods, is written by Mr. 
Connor; volume two, Federal Period, by Dr. William K. Boyd, and 
the third volume, North Carolina Since 1860, by Dr. J. G. deRoulhae 
Hamilton. The last three volumes devoted to N. C. Biography, include 
sketches by a special staff of writers. 


Danrets, Josrpnus. Navy and the nation; war-time addresses, with 
an introduction by John Wilber Jenkins. O.348p. Doran, 1919. 
$2.00. 

Some forty addresses and messages to naval students, industrial 
societies, surgeons and other groups during war time. 


Drxon, Tuomas. Fall of a nation. D.372p. Donohue, 1918. 60c. 


Drxon, Tuomas. Way of a man; a story of the new woman. 
D.294p. il. Appleton, 1919. $1.50. 


110 NinereentH Annuat Session 


Guasson, Witt1am Henry. Federal military pensions in the United 
States; ed. by David Kinley. (Carnegie endowment for interna- 
tional peace. Division of economics and history.) 0.305p. 
Oxford, 1918. $2.50. 


A frank, unbiased, detailed history divided into two main parts: the 
English origins and pre-Civil War Pensions, and the pensions since 
1861. 


Granam, Epwarp Kinper. Education and citizenship, and other papers. 
2538p. Putnam, 1919. 
The purpose of this volume is to bring together in convenient form 
the more notable addresses and papers on education, culture, citizen- 
ship, and allied subjects of the late Edward Kidder Graham. 


Herne, Frank R. Jumble book of rhymes. O.88p. il. Hackney & 
Moale Co., Asheville, 1919. $1.00. 


Horns, Herman Harrevt. Jesus—our standard. D.307p. il. Abing- 
don press, 1918. $1.25. 


Horne, Herman Harrert. Modern problems as Jesus saw them. 
D.137p. Association press, 1918. 5c. 


Kirkianp, Winrrrep Marcaretra. The joys of being a woman, and 
other papers. D.282p. Houghton, 1918. $1.50. 

Fresh and new in their attitude toward the joys of being a woman, 
these essays set about to prove their theory merely by showing a woman’s 
whimsical delight in all things touching her life, from old clothes to 
eternity. Many of the essays are light and humorous, but some have 
a more serious depth comparable to the author’s The new death. Some 
are magazine reprints. 


Kirxianp, Wintrrep Marcarerra. The new death. D.173p. Hough- 
ton, 1918. $1.50. 

“Tt is a new illumination, a New Death, when dying can be the 
greatest inspiration of our everyday energy, the strongest impulse 
toward daily joy,” says this author who shows us how our present daily 
contact with death demands a newer and more harmonious attitude 
toward life, both mortal and immortal. Convincingly written and con- 
soling to those who have suffered bereavement. Published in the At- 
lantic Monthly. 


Locxuart, Lurner Bynum. American lubricants, from the standpoint 
of the consumer. 0.236p. Easton (Pa.) Chemical Publishing 
Co., 1918. $2.00. 


State Lirerary anp Historicat Association 111 


Massey, Witscur Fisk. Massey’s garden book for the southern states. 


~ 


O0.127p. il. Progressive Farmer. 7T5c. 


Myers, Wiitram Srarr. Socialism and American ideals. D.89p. 
Princeton University press, 1919. $1.00. 


Nortn Carorma Bar Association. Centennial celebration of the 
Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1819-1919, by the North 
Carolina Bar Association held in the Supreme Court Room, 
Raleigh, January 4, 1919. 85p.il. Mitchell Printing Co., Ra- 
leigh, 1919. 

Includes addresses by Judge R. W. Winston, Thurston T. Hicks and 

Marshall DeLancey Haywood. 


Otrver, Mrs. Carotmve Jounson. Rubrum lilies. New York Inter- 
national Authors’ Association. (1918.) 


Pearson, Tuomas Grrsert. Tales from birdland; il. By Charles 
Livingstone Bull. D.237p. Doubleday, 1918. $1.00. 


Pett, Epwarp Leicx. Adventures in faith in foreign lands; a glance 
at the salient events in the history of Southern Methodist missions. 
D.296p. Publishing house M. E. Church South, 1919. 60e. 


Pett, Epwarp Lzicn. Four feet on a fender; quiet hour talks with 
women. D.176p. Dutton, 1917. $1.00. 


Pett, Epwarp Letecx. What did Jesus really teach about war? 
D.180p. Revell, 1917. $1.00. 


Pett, Epwarp Letex. Your fallen soldier boy still lives. S.56p. 
Revell, 1918. 50c. 


Scurrer, James Avcustin Brown. The nation at war. 0.285p. 
Doran, 1918. $1.50. 

This book consists largely of the author’s personal experiences com- 
bined with much material unofficially furnished by members and by 
the files of the Council of National Defense. The writer has “tried 
to give the casual reader a general idea of what the State Councils are 
doing as a whole.” It has no great narrative interest, but it will be 
useful as reference material which is well indexed. Appendices con- 
tain the author’s letter of resignation from the Defense Council, in 
which the attitude of the administration toward the Hearst publica- 
tions is assailed, and a letter from Colonel Roosevelt on the same sub- 
ject. 


112 NuvetEentH ANNUAL SESSION 


Smirx, Cuarres ArpHonso. Keynote studies in keynote books of the 
Bible. (James Sprunt lectures delivered at the Union Theological 
Seminary in Virginia, 1917.) D.202p. Revell, 1919. $1.25. 


Smirn, Cuartes Atpnonso. New words, self-defined. 215p. Cloth. 
Doubleday. $1.25. 


Dr. Smith has collected a great quantity of the new words, slang 
and other, which so plentifully came into use during the war years and 
has made each one define itself by quoting a sentence in which its use 
makes its meaning clear. 


Summery, Guorcr. Modern punctuation: its utilities and conventions. 
0.265p. Oxford, 1919. . $1.50. 


Van Nopren, Leonarp. The challenge. Elkin Mathews, London, 1919. 
By the translator of Vondel’s Lucifer. It contains 126 sonnets, many 
cf which were originally published in the Evening Sun, “Sun Dial” 
column: “A Prophecy,” a fragment taken from his tremendous “Arma- 
geddon”: A Symphonic Drama of Evolution, written in 1911, and two 
concluding poems. The sonnets are dedicated to Josephus Daniels. 


EDITIONS AND COMPILATIONS 
Greentaw, Epwin Atmiron—ed. Builders of democracy; the service 
told in song and story, of those who gave us freedom. (Lake his- 
tory stories.) D.347p. Scott, 1918. 60c. 


Greeniaw, E. A., and Hawrorp, James Horry—eds. Great tradition ; 
a book of selections from English and American prose and poetry. 
O.679p. Scott, 1919. $2.25. 


Lyon, W. H. Commentaries on equity, jurisprudence as administered 
in England and America, by Joseph Story; ed. by W. H. Lyon. 
14ed.enl. 3v.0. Little, 1918. $22.50. 


Mannine, Jamus S., ed. In the matter of the Republic of Cuba vs. the 
state of North Carolina for recovery upon certain fraudulent 
bonds issued during the reconstruction period. 101p. Edwards 
& Broughton, 1917. 


Record of the proceedings in the Supreme Court of the United 
States and other documents. 


William Joseph Peele 
By Rosert W. WINSTON 


It is my privilege to try to interpret a strange and useful character, 
William J. Peele. Let me hasten to say that to him North Carolina 
owes two things of unusual value, the college of Agriculture and 
Mechanic Arts, and the State Historical Commission. 

Early in life Peele saw the blight that was upon the State. The 
son of an extensive slave owner and an ardent advocate of the rights 
of the state, he despised slavery and its train of evils; a devoted son 
and trustee of the University and a classical scholar, he knew that 
Greek and Latin alone got people nowhere, and that nothing could save 
our civilization unless manual labor was dignified, the white man 
handled the hammar and the hoe and the system of caste was abolished; 
that our need was vocational and industrial training; that our enisled 
self-sufficient life must go. He was misunderstood, he was called a 
dreamer; some thought that he was not loyal to the “Party” or to 
the University; all, however, considered him harmless. Having no 
organization behind him, he was not feared by the political leaders, and 
his reform speeches, his Watauga Club, his collaboration with such 
radical thinkers and writers as Walter H. Page and W. E. Christian, 
his tireless advocacy of a real democracy, his ridicule of the antiquated 
political platform, might amuse—they could not disturb—an en- 
trenched civilization, beautiful for the few, frigid to the many. Times 
wore on, and after years of preparation, of planting and of sowing, 
came the fruitage. A New Democracy was alive, industrial leaders 
came to the front, the professions dropped to second place, an indus- 
trial college was born, taking the large annual landscript fund from the 
University and devoting it to agriculture. This was too much for the 
elder statesmen, the new movement must be checked; Peele was riding 
his hobby a little too hard! Mr. Peele delivered the cornerstone ad- 
dess, an address full of confidence, outlining the work to be accom- 
plished, ending in a wise prophecy and provoking state-wide talk. At 
its conclusion the Governor of the Commonwealth arose and declared 
that whatever his views may have been on the subject of an industrial 
college, after Mr. Peele’s address he now supported it. 

How abundantly has time vindicated the wisdom of this man. From 
August 22, 1888, when the cornerstone of the Industrial College was 
laid, to this hour North Carolina has kept fully abreast of her sister 
states in agriculture, in manufacturing, in diversified industries, in 
education, in public health and public service. Peele verily believed 

8 


114 NineterentH ANNUAL SESSION 


that God made the country and man made the town, and he could see 
New York going the way of Imperial Rome, for the Syrian Orontes 
is still pouring its filth into the Tiber. “In vain,” said Peele, in his 
introduction to “Distinguished North Carolinians,’ “did Virgil and 
Horace sing their deathless melodies of country homes, to a people 
whose blood was already poisoned by the lust for gain and fevered with 
the excitement of artificial life.’ In Mr. Peele were blended, in rare 
proportions, the ideal and a high valuation of the practical, albeit he 
was not a practical man. His ideas were original and suggestive, but 
other hands must develop them. When he had brooded over some pro- 
ject for months and years, and had prepared the public for it, he would 
perhaps organize it into a corporation or some sort of a society, foster 
it, launch it forth, and then unselfishly retire, leaving to others the 
glory and the emoluments. He made no place for himself in these 
creations of his brain and his love, and from them he drew no salary. 

The man with vision and capacity to organize general movements 
does a service to the State as much greater than the individualist, as 
the whole is greater than the units which compose it. This was the 
orbit of Mr. Peele’s attainment. Murphey, Swain, Hawks, Saunders, 
Clark, rendered invaluable personal service to the history of the State, 
but it was personal and sporadic. Mr. Peele was not interested in 
making a personal contribution to historical knowledge; he would 
find some way to put the interest already existing, upon a more per- 
manent foundation and of bringing the State, in its organized capacity, 
to recognize its obligations to history. This he did through the creation 
and establishment of the North Carolina Historical Commission. It 
is perhaps too soon to speak of the influence of this Commission upon 
historical investigation in North Carolina, since its energies and efforts, 
so far, must have been absorbed in the more pressing task of collecting 
Wentel sources, for permanent preservation. It has, we think, created 
more healthy standards of literary excellence, and brought the people 
of North Carolina to a keener appreciation of the value of historical 
studies in a democratic State, and to the importance of preserving the 
records upon which such studies must be based. 

Outside of North Carolina the Historical Commission has given the 
State a high place in historical circles. With the possible exception of 
Wisconsin, no State in the Union stands ahead of North Carolina in 
its reputation for intelligent, effective, historical work, through a State 
agency. Nothing is more gratifying to the pride of a true Carolinian 
than the strides presently made by his State, along these lines. North 
Carolina had been in the sisterhood of States more than a century 
before a nich in her capitol or a spot in her capitol grounds had a 


Sratre Lirerary anp HistroricaLt AssocraTIoN 115 


marble shaft or bust or monument to commemorate the deeds of her 
sons. A great change has now been wrought. The motto upon our 
State Flag is, Hsse quam videri; this is now liberally translated, It pays 
to advertise. 

Sometimes a man’s life work is marked out, from his youth, and 
there is no mistaking his future. Such was the case with W. J. Peele. 
One could not conceive of Peele as a careless, frolicsome boy; he was 
always old. His graduating essay—the Philosophy of Reform—was 
his life’s chart. Every boy and girl raised to some useful trade or 
profession; equal opportunity, as defined by Jefferson in the Declara- 
tion, for all mankind; just as few laws as possible on the statute books; 
and the New Testament, the sufficient rule of conduct—these old- 
fashioned principles were the creed of this simple disciple of Macon— 
this man of the Baptist persuasion. Whether teaching homely lessons 
of industry and thrift, in his humorous letters published as the “Yankee 
and his Dollar,” or, in his Washington Birthday address, “What Wash- 
ington left us and what we have done with it,” there was the same 
recurrence to fundamental principles; the same insistence on common 
sense and common honesty; the same contempt for shams and denuncia- 
tion of hypocrites. As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses by the 
art of counterfeiting the symbols of Heaven’s appointment, a devilish 
power, so (said Peele) this age suffers much from spurious greatness, 
persistently advertised, as bearing the image and superscription of 
virtue. 

The college philosopher, young Peele, manifested powers of general- 
ization and of concentration, a wide vision and originality of thought. A 
discriminating interpreter of the Greek and Latin Classics, delighting 
in the imagery and mystery of the Old, and the allegory and metaphor 
of the New Testament, and in the quaint humor and homely wit of Poor 
Richard, of Spurgeon, and of Lawrence Stern, Peele’s style was all his 
own. Dr. Alderman, Governor Aycock, Bishop Strange, Dr. Joyner, 
Dr. McIver, Governor Craig, Judge Manning, Horace Williams and 
Governor Winston, his mates at college, were not his equal as a writer 
of essays. On a memorable occasion and as class President he presented 
the class cup to the eldest son born to any member of the class, and this 
is how he did it: 


“Bill Arp says that there is advice enough lying round loose in this world 
to run three the same size, and have some left over for a future life; but 
in the name of the Class of ’79 I wish to say to this boy’s father: Teach 
him to hate shams; they are walking the highways of this life ‘in ghostly 
affection’ of greatness. Teach him to be content with nothing less than 
genuine success; for as I go further and further along life’s pathway, I 
find it strewn thicker, and thicker, with the wrecks of men who were almost 


116 NineteentH Annuat SEssiIon 


successful—just a little more faith, a little more courage, a little more 
character and all would have been well. Teach him to be in love with some 
great truth, tenderly to woo it, bravely to marry it, for better or for worse, 
and then faithfully to guard it as long as life shall last. Teach him that 
although we are poor in North Carolina, we need men a thousand times 
more than we need money, and that we have the material here to make 
them out of. Teach him to be nothing but true, to fear nothing but God, 
and to love nothing but virtue, truth and God.” 


Mr. Peele could not get away from the idea that the cause of the 
Civil War was commercial jealousy. Henry Adams and Mill say that 
in 61 the people of England entertained the same opinion. Peele did 
give credit to the North for so shifting the issue that it seemed to be 
a war for freedom. 


“The agitation about the Negro, as a counter-irritant to distract atten- 
tion from the injustice of Federal revenue laws, was (said Peele) more 
than a success; for the shallow politicians of both sections forgot the real 
issue; but the beneficiaries never lost sight of it. I will use a homely 
illustration: A and B are doing business on the opposite sides of a street; 
B begins to undersell A; A becomes angry, but cannot afford to tell his 
customers the cause; he hears that B once cheated a negro out of a mule; 
he makes that charge; they fight; the court record of the trial shows that 
the fight was about the negro and the mule; but there is not a business 
man on the street who does not know that the record speaks a lie.” 


Circumstances forced Peele into the law. What havoe res angusta 
domi plays with the sons of men! Peele a lawyer, Burns a tax col- 
lector! Clitéllae bovi sunt impositae! The capital of the State was 
chosen as his abiding place; and thither, in 1880, he repaired, without 
clients, without funds, and with little knack for acquiring either. Year 
in and year out, for nearly forty years, this silent, lonely man fretted 
his life away settling estates, abstracting titles, pleading and being im- 
pleaded, divorced from the weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
mercy and faith, in which his soul so much delighted. So little did 
Peele care for money, that if some client had paid him $100,000 it may 
be doubted if he would have known what to do with it and it is sure that 
he would have lost confidence in himself that he took it! Great sums 
of money simply terrified him! He could not understand how people 
got rich honestly. Contemplate him during these forty years in the 
wilderness. His heart and soul busy with dreams of an ideal Republic, 
his feet of lead. Perhaps he reaches his law office in the morning, 
after midnight hours with some plan to shake the old State into a 
consciousness of wasted opportunities; perhaps he is chartering a society 
to erect a monument to Walter Raleigh or sending forth hundreds of 
letters in this cause, or he is planning to combine a Raleigh monument 
and a Flying Base and Naval Station at Nags Head, perhaps he is 


Sratm Literary AND HistoricaL AssocraTION aly 


seeking to foster a kindlier feeling betwixt whites and blacks and is 
preparing that fine tribute to Wilson Caldwell, our Chapel Hill janitor, 
“ap among the shadows which gloomed perpetual twilight in the Old 
South Building, this silent, sweating, stalwart was throwing his soul 
into his bell. How many jurists and statesmen and soldiers has he rung 
on and off the stage? he was ringing out the sines and the co-sines, 
the tangents and the logarithms and ringing in the girls with their 
scented robes and cloud-like draperies”; perhaps he has been at a meet- 
ing of the Trustees of the University or the Industrial College, or with 
the Historical Commission, or it may be that he is preparing the two 
Law books that he published, “The Homestead” and “Civil Government 
in North Carolina,” or compiling his “Distinguished North Caro- 
linians” or whatever he is doing, he finally reaches his quaint, dusty, 
unpretentious, law office, with his head full of everything on earth 
except his daily grind. Why did not the Government issue a friendly 
eapias for him, as it did for the author of the Scarlet Letter, and save 
him to the world to help and to bless? It takes a Napoleon to discover 
and perpetuate a Joubert. JRousseau’s pension was small but it was 
large enough to give his “Social Compact” and liberty to France. What 
place in life is there, after all, for the philosopher? “Sire,” said the 
quartermaster to Napoleon as a battle was approaching, “What dis- 
position shall be made of the savans?” “Let the savans and the asses 
be coralled in the center.” 

This man’s brain was never idle. Without amusements or vacations, 
without vices, with no fondness for games or sports or crowds or 
recreations, with few, very few friends, perhaps one or two, quite out 
of sorts with the rudderless human family in its wild dash for money 
and more money; bewildered, aghast at the laxity of modern morals and 
the militant feminist upheaval, alarmed that the home had given place 
to the apartment and that the New Testament was no longer the guide 
of conduct, alone, quite alone, unlike Job, unlike Carlyle, whom he 
greatly admired, unlike Thoreau, who was not more simple than he, 
this prophet never lost faith, never doubted of God and the Righteous 
Remnant. With Kant, Peele daily exclaimed, “the starry heavens above 
me and the moral law within me are the wonders of my life.” Over 
against John Stuart Mill and his kind, whose broad philosophy had no 
place for God, and whose sense of justice and freedom would liberate 
men and women from the tyranny of the marriage tie, we would place 
this cornfield philosopher—unspoiled and unafraid. 

We could see the end weeks ahead. Towards the last physical weak- 
ness affected his voice, but not his soul. Firmly he sat in his chair, 
hankering like the great elk in the forest in spring time. Turning 


118 NineteentH AnnuAL SxEssion 


to me one cold February day, after he had bade everyone leave the room 
he handed me the most valued thing he had on earth, his well-worn 
Juvenal, with its Nemo malus feliz, and the rest, and remarked very 
quietly, “Cherish this for the sake of old ’79 and pass it on to your 
oldest son some day.” A few days later he said: 

“T will not get to Chapel Hill this June, you must be there. Give 
the boys credit for what they have got, but don’t fail to ask them 
what they have done, what they are. And the astronomical obser- 
vatory. I wanted to live to see a great telescope on the Hill, pointing 
away from the earth to the infinite, to the stars. You must not let 
it die. Christ is coming to the earth again, after awhile.” And 
then—after a pause—and with fire under his shaggy brows, “Do you 
suppose that the wise men will be the first to discover Him next 
time? Never, the poor and humble, these only have eyes to see.” 
How like Tolstoi he was. A few days later, quietly and unconcernedly 
as if he were announcing the most trifling event, and without a quiver, 
“T shall die to-morrow,” he said; and he did. 


Edward Kidder Graham: Teacher and Interpreter of Modern 
Citizenship ee: 
By Louis R. WiLson 
Librarian of the University of North Carolina 

In 1909, in an address delivered before the North Carolina Teachers’ 
Assembly on “The Teacher and Modern Democracy,” Edward Kidder 
Graham, then professor of English at the University, employed these 
significant words: 

“The best teacher I ever had, I think, the one that brought me to myself 
and took me out of the ranks of the ‘undesirables, was a man who knew 
less than any teacher I ever had. He did not know enough to ‘work’ 9th 
grade arithmetic, or translate the fables in Harkness’s first Latin book; 
yet he gave to every boy in his room the ideal of liberal citizenship for his 
possession, and the ambition to make the most of himself for the sake of 
the State.” 


Again, in 1911, as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, in an essay 
entitled “A North Carolina Teacher,” written in loving appreciation 
of his former teacher, the late Professor Thomas Hume, he challenged 
a statement of Professor Barrett Wendell, of Harvard University, in 
which teaching was called “a sterile field.” On the contrary and with 
deep conviction he declared: 

“He is a sadly astray guide who calls teaching ‘a sterile field.’ That will 
not be true until pliable humanity is worn down to a breed of barren metal. 
Experience reveals a different display of facts. Few of the achievements 
of men have been solitary triumphs. They were first laid with words of 
grateful discipleship at the feet of some teacher.” 


Again, in 1914, in his inaugural address, when he was assuming in 
solemn assembly the high duties of the first teacher of the State, and 
as such was making clear the function of the institution over which 
he had been called to preside, he said: 


“The professions of law, medicine, the ministry, journalism, commerce, 
and the rest are essential to the upbuilding of a democratic commonwealth; 
but they must be interpreted, not as adventures in selfish advancement, but 
as enterprises in constructive statesmanship, liberating both the state and 
the man. It is the function of the university not only to train men in the 
technique of the law, but to lift them to a higher level of achievement by 
making them living epistles of social justice; not only to make clever prac- 
titioners of medicine, but to lift them into conservators of the public health; 
not merely to train teachers in the facts and methods of education, but’”— 
your attention is particularly directed to this sentiment—‘“but to fire them 
with the conviction that they are the productive creators of a new civiliza- 
tion.” 


And, still again, in the tense autumn of 1917, to his fellow teachers 
in annual assembly, after America had taken up the gauge of battle 


120 NineteentoH ANNUAL SuEssion 


in defense of human liberty, and looking with rare penetration beyond 
the vale of bitter conflict to the present hour of victory, he said: 


“We are to form after this war, as men have after every great human 
upheaval, a new concept of what it means to be a good man and a good 
citizen. 

“The need of the world for intelligent and sympathetic leadership that 
constitutes the distinctive service of teaching makes freshly luminous the 
great and joyous job we have to do in the world and gives to us a new 
inspiration for doing it superlatively well. 

“The world is unifying itself in this terrible ordeal of fire to write, not 
for us alone, but for all mankind, a new chapter in progress in new terms 
of the divine nature of human life, through which, under God, we shall 
have a new birth of material and spiritual freedom. And of this, that is 
nothing less than a new center of gravity of all human conduct, the priest 
and prophet of democracy, whether peaceful or militant, is the teacher in 
the schools of the nation.” 


These terse sentences, taken from four notable addresses delivered 
within the decade 1909-1918, in which Graham’s genius for leadership 
and rare eloquence fired the imagination of the State and gripped the 
thinking of the nation, set forth in focal light the high ideal that 
he cherished for himself—that of becoming in full truth teacher and 
interpreter of the larger citizenship. They reveal the heart of the great 
matter at which he wrought from the time he received the priceless 
possession from the hands of his unlettered teacher until in the full 
flower of his strength he was called to pass it on to other hands. 

It is to the development of this theme, therefore, this conception of 
the teacher-interpreter, and to the applications which he made of it 
in his notable career as educational statesman, that I shall devote 
myself in the moments you have so generously given me as your repre- 
sentative on this occasion to pay tribute to his high service. 

Graham was no believer in what he was pleased to style the “pouring 
in” process of teaching, the process of presenting the data of learning 
without fusing it with life and spirit. To know the year in which 
Shakespeare wrote “The Tempest,” or to be familiar with the legendary 
sources from which the Hamlet story was drawn, were not for him 
the essentials in the study of the master dramatist. To teach these 
wonderful plays in this spiritless routine way, was to miss the enchant- 
ing beauty of the one, and leave Hamlet out of the other. On the 
contrary he held that instructor to be most of worth who utilized the 
media of instruction, whether the classics, the applied sciences, or voca- 
tional subjects, as agencies by means of which the student found him- 
self. The mastery of the body of facts involved was essential, to be 
sure, but not the highest end. In his class room he taught his students 


Srarm Lirerary anp HistroricaL AssocriaTION 121 


English literature, but while doing this the real objective which he 
had in mind was not that his pupils should acquire the data of litera- 
ture, but its spirit; not that he should so drill his pupils that they might 
pass the examinations set, but that in the light of new and higher 
standards first seen in the illumined page of some master spirit, they 
might so examine and discipline and relate themselves to the task of 
the hour as to learn the fine art of true living. In 1915, in an address 
to the student body at the opening of the University, he summarized 
his thought as to where instruction and training should lead in these 
words: 


“No student is truly trained unless he has learned to do pleasantly, and 
promptly, and with clear-cut accuracy every task he has obligated himself 
to do; . . . unless he puts into his work his own personal curiosities 
and opens his faculties to a lively and original interest in his work that 
leads him to test for himself what he is told; . . . unless he gets from 
his contact with the master spirits of the race those qualities of taste and 
behavior and standards of judgment that constitute a true gentleman; 

unless he realizes that he does not live to himself alone, but is a 
part of an organic community life that is the source of most of the privi- 
leges he enjoys.” 


Continuing the theme a year later to another incoming class, and 
phrasing it differently, he said: 


“To become a true University man . . . does not mean the abandon- 
ment of any legitimate sort of happiness whatever, nor the loss of any 
freedom. The adventure of discovering and liberating one’s mind, far 
from being a dull and dreary performance, is the most thrilling of all 
youthful adventures. There is no question of self-punishment or external 
discipline, but only the freedom of becoming one’s own master, instead of 
a slave to the tyranny of one’s low and cheap desires. To come into this 
insight is to see this organized discovery of the mind that we call educa- 
tion, not as learning, but as a love of knowledge; not as a matter of being 
industrious, but of loving industry; not as a matter of giving us a good 
start toward a middle-age success, but to enable us to keep growing, and so 
lay hold on the eternal spring of life.” 


Graham was an idealist in the truest sense. But he was also a 
pragmatist remarkably successful in combining his ideals in a program 
in which they could be realized. As such, he was not merely content 
to present ideals to his students, to interpret for them the finer things 
of the spirit, to point the way to larger citizenship. He went a step 
further and demonstrated the way by which they could begin to realize 
their ideals for themselves. He solved this problem, which to most 
teachers proves a stone of offense, by calling upon the student body to 
become a self-governing group, to put the ideal of good citizenship 


122 NIvetEentH ANNUAL SxEsston 


to work on their own campus; to discover for themselves the relationship 
which they should sustain to the University and to one another, and 
then so safeguard and respect them as to perfect and make workable 
the democracy which they constituted——a thing which, under his in- 
spirational guidance, so challenged their imagination and hearts as to 
result in the disappearance of prodding discipline and the establish- 
ment of ideal standards of student conduct. He began by presenting 
to his students the facts of literature. His task was ended only when 
at some later day there stood before him the self-discovered, self- 
disciplined, self-governing student—citizens-to-be. 

Graham’s conception of the function of the University—a conception 
which won for him immediate recognition as a new type of virile con- 
structive educational leader—was of the same sort. He conceived of 
it as an aggregate of teachers and interpreters fused into the State’s 
chief instrument, not merely for assisting local students in acquiring 
a body of learning and finding themselves, but also for carrying truth 
to every citizen of the commonwealth. He would have it not only 
carry information to those who sought it, but through the information 
thus carried would so enrich the inner life of those to whom the truth 
was borne that they would find their chief happiness in making the 
common good more widely prevail. 

Graham’s program for the schools and colleges of the nation during 
the stress of war was similar. The war simply clarified and intensi- 
fied his conception of their task. Their function had always been to 
furnish men ideals by which to live, and if need be, die. In the nation’s — 
supreme ordeal of fire it was the same. This was their birth-right and 
most sacred duty. Theirs, above all others, was the coveted privilege 
of posting on the lintels of the nation the undying principles of justice, 
freedom, and brotherhood for which America had stood, and for which, 
in the face of fire and sword and death, she would ever stand. In 
three moving addresses delivered during the war period before teacher 
audiences—“Certain War-Time Duties of Teachers,” “Patriotism and 
the Schools,” “The American University and the New Nationalism”— 
he proclaimed them the sources of morale, the deep springs of spirit 
and sublime faith through which the youth of America destined for 
the fields of France would prove equal to their task. So firm was 
his convicition that this was the high privilege of American colleges, 
and so confident was he that his Alma Mater had availed herself of 
it and had made spirit vital in the hearts of her sons—so confident was 
he of this, it was possible for him, on an October morning forever 
memorable in the annals of American education, to say to his soldier- 
students—our sons and brothers—“The spirit of this campus, the spirit 


Sratre Lirerary AND HistoricaL ASssocIATION 129 


of our State and country, the spirit of the world today, assure to us 
the continuing courage and complete devotion that will bring to a 
glorious fulfillment the noblest adventure that ever called to the aspir- 
ing spirit of youth.” 

Extending this theory of instruction beyond the walls of the school 
room, or college, or university, where students under skilled guidance 
could be led to the discovery of themselves, President Graham, in 
notable addresses before this association, the North Carolina Social 
Conference, the Teachers’ Assembly, the American Bankers’ Associa- 
tion, and other State and national organizations, carried the same 
message to banker, and editor, and lawyer, and farmer. Again and 
again he called upon men in all professions and all callings to make 
the discovery of themselves through their work, even though that work 
was infinitely removed from the class room. From a hundred plat- 
forms, and with compelling eloquence, he urged them to consider their 
tasks in all their relations to the public welfare; for achievement in 
medicine, achievement in banking, achievement in agriculture, touched 
with fine feeling and accompanied by a genuine desire to find truth, 
he held, becomes culture and leads to the true art of living, to perfect 
citizenship. The Apostle Paul, in the Hpistle to the Hebrews, declared 
that the law had been given to serve as schoolmaster to prepare men 
for the new and better dispensation. Edward Kidder Graham, in 
that remarkably illuminating essay, “Culture and Commercialism,” 
declared with gripping conviction, that work, that achievement, that 
the daily task, when approached with open mind and sincere heart, 
become the teacher, the interpreter of the higher life, the larger citi- 
zenship; and the numerous addresses following it such as “Culture, 
Agriculture, and Citizenship,” “Higher Education and Business,” 
“Banking and the Larger Citizenship,” “Prosperity and Patriotism,” 
and the call to North Carolina to spend a week in the study of civic 
problems, were but applications of this fundamental principle to specific 
eases. This, ladies and gentlemen, was the message he brought to 
the class room and the campus of the University; this was the gospel 
of sweetness and light to the furtherance of which he brought the 
quickening power of his magnetic personality and the resources of 
the State’s great democratic institution. And this is the vineyard in 
which he would have us go work today. 

I have not set down in this memorial record any of the data of 
Graham’s brilliant career: of his life as a student on the campus, 
of his distinctive service as professor and dean, of the high position 
in the sisterhood of American universities to which he brought his 
Alma Mater, and of the significant recognition he quickly won in the 


124 NineteentoH AnNvuAL SEssion 


field of national leadership. I have not spoken of his inspiring per- 
sonality, or of those radiant qualities of mind and heart by which he 
drew and bound men to him as with cords of steel, or of the glow of 
comprehending friendship felt by those who shared with him the joyous 
companionship of his fireside. Nor have I referred, except by inference 
to the fervor of his eloquence by which he moved the hearts of men, 
or to his deft skill in words with which he clothed his thought. And 
until now I have left unnoted, except in casual way, the all-too-com- 
pressed sheaf of essays and occasional papers which came from his 
pen in leisure hours such as “The Poetry of John Charles McNeil,” 
“A North Carolina Teacher,” “The Essays of Dr. Crothers,” “The 
Reading of Children,” “The Greatness of Two Great Men,” “Happi- 
ness’—papers characterized by grace and playful humorousness of 
style, the counterpart of his more militant mood, and expressive of his 
fine spirituality and large humanhood. 


Since his death, other members of this association, from various 
platforms and through publications of wide circulation, have paid 
loving tribute to him as teacher, executive, interpreter of culture and 
democracy, as leader in State and nation, as speaker and writer of 
virile power, and as radiant personality and inspirer of men. Further- 
more, yours has been the fortune, as well as mine, to walk with him, 
teacher and interpreter of the citizenship of the new day, in joyous 
comradeship, and you, as well as I, know how far short words fail 
to portray the value of a life which can best be described in terms 
of spirit or pure flame. Therefore, I have held myself to the strict 
limitations assigned me by your Secretary. And so, in this tense 
hour, this time of turmoil and pregnant flux, when men, for personal 
or class advantage, forget the relations of their tasks to the public 
welfare; this moment of the nation’s peril when clear-visioned leaders 
such as he are required to catch up and bear aloft the torch now 
fallen from his hands—I would remind us of the teacher he found 
worthy of highest honor—the teacher who could not work the prob- 
lems of 9th grade arithmetic or translate the simplest Latin fables, 
but sent every one of his pupils out into life with an ideal of citizen- 
ship and an ambition to be and do something worth while for the 
State. In this moment when we seek to pay honor to his memory 
here where he served us and his State and country, I would remind 


Sratze Lirerary anp HistoricaL ASssocIATION 125 


us of the great lesson which he, as the teacher and interpreter of the 
larger citizenship, would have us learn, and to which, in these clear 
ringing words he called us: 


“Where shall we begin this necessary task of realizing our dream of 
commonwealth that will be satisfied with nothing less than the common 
weal of all? Where, but here and now? Nothing can act but where it is. 
Our greatest lesson is to learn that these streets and stores and fields— 
the earth and the sky in all of their daily manifestations—are but ‘folds 
across the face of God’; that the ‘Thy will’ for which we daily pray will be 
done here and now or nowhere; and that agriculture, business, freedom, 
education, and religion are but instruments in our hands for finding the 
common God in the common good and making His will prevail.” 


Kemp Plummer Battle re 


By Wit1i1am ©. Smirz 
Professor of English in the North Carolina College for Women 
Robert Browning in his poem “Saul” represents young David as 
seeking to arouse the King from one of his attacks of mental depres- 
sion by prophesying his assured immortality through transmitted 
service. The particular words that I have in mind as peculiarly 
apposite to the theme assigned me by our Secretary are these: 
“Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit 
for! the spirit be thine! 
Each deed thou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world: 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, 
long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, ‘ 
till they too give forth 
A like cheer to their sons; who in turn, 
fill the South and the North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. 
Is Saul dead? . . . His fame would ye know? 
Up above see the rock’s naked face, 
where the record shall go 
In great characters cut by the scribe,— 
Such was Saul, so he did; 
With the sages directing the work 
by the populace chid,— 
For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there!” 


Accepting these words as peculiarly appropriate in their application — 
to the life and services of Dr. Kemp P. Battle, I shall in the few 
minutes allotted me on this program attempt to point out how his 
spirit transmitted to others is bearing rich fruit today throughout the 
length and breadth of the State he loved so well and served so faith- 
fully. 

Dr. Battle loved North Carolina well and fervently,—her people, 
her history, her traditions, and her territory. But chief among her 
institutions and highest on the record of her possessions and achieve- 
ments,—with a pride and a devotion that knew neither wavering nor 
abatement, he loved the University of North Carolina. This love 
was his heritage, and from the time that he entered her doors in 1845 
to the hour of his passing, February 4, 1919,—a long period of 74 
years,—that heritage of love increased with each successive stage of 
his career from student and graduate student to tutor of Mathematics, 
Member of her Board of Trustees, Secretary and Treasurer, President, 
founder and director of her Normal School, professor of Political 
Economy, professor of Law, Alumni Professor of History, Professor 


Strate Lirzerary anp Historica, AssccraTIon 127 


Emeritus, faculty and presidential counsellor, and historian of her 
one and a quarter centuries of service; a heritage of love that increased 
in comprehensiveness and intensity until it embraced every man and 
woman on the long roll of students, faculty and beneficiaries; every 
stone of the buildings, yes—every tree and shrub, flower and blade 
of grass, I think,—on every foot of her territorial holdings! 

And well might it be so, for, in a very true sense all that he beheld 
there, both with the actual eye and with the prophetic vision of the 
seer was the product of his thought and devotion—a preservation, 
restoration, renewal and expansion embodying his unceasing labors 
and fostering care. 

I need not here repeat in detail the story of his services in behalf 
of the restoration and reopening of the University in the dark days of 
the 70s. That story has been told again and again by Mrs. Spencer, 
Charles Lee Smith, Professor Raper, Professor Cobb, Dr. George T. 
Winston, Dr. E. A. Alderman, Paul B. Means, and R. D. W. Connor. 
Or, the fuller story, graced with infinitely tender touches of pathos, love 
and humor may be found in the second volume of Dr. Battle’s admira- 
ble history of the University of North Carolina. 

Tts buildings desecrated, deserted, neglected and decayed; its libraries, 
laboratories and museums plundered; its revenues gone, and its credi- 
tors seeking an opportunity to sell what remained at public auction; the 
government to which it must needs look for support hostile and tainted 
with the never-to-be forgotten corruption of partisan politics; its 
would-be supporters discouraged, impoverished and maligned—such was 
the situation when in 1875 Dr. Battle addressed himself to the seem- 
ingly hopeless task of revival, reconstruction and rehabilitation. 

Courageously yet tactfully; by patriotic appeal of voice and pen; 
through the press, by letter, and by personal interview; the work was 
done—“conceived, inaugurated and executed” by Dr. Battle. 

Measured in terms of dollars and cents—$18,000 for repairs and im- 
provements and an annual income of $7,500 for support—the resources 
seem pitiably small. But measured in terms of loyalty, devotion and 
service the contributions of alumni and faculty are beyond praise. The 
reopening took place in September, 1875, Dr. Battle Chairman of Com- 
mittee on Reorganization and Course of Study, Chairman of Finance 
Committee, Secretary and Treasurer, and Chairman of Committee on 
Reopening. A year later he was made President, in which capacity he 
continued to serve 15 years. 

During that time he gathered about him an able faculty imbued with 
his spirit of devotion and ideals of service; strengthened, liberalized 
and extended the courses of study; established special departments of 


128 NInereentH ANNUAL SESSION 


agriculture, law, engineering, medicine and pharmacy; organized the 
graduate school offering work leading to the Master’s and Doctor’s 
degrees; enlarged the material plant by the construction of new build- 
ings; better equipped its libraries and laboratories; brought the institu- 
tion out of the back-woods of inaccessibility through the building of the 
University Railroad; procured in the face of organized opposition, the 
first annual appropriations from the General Assembly; secured most 
of its student aid and endowment funds, and made the institution an 
actual part as well as theoretical head of the State’s public school 
system through the establishment of the Summer Normal School for 
both sexes. 

The beneficent and far-reaching effects of the University Normal 
School it would be difficult to overestimate. Room and tuition were 
free to public school teachers, and, for the poorer members of the pro- 
fession, provision was made for traveling expenses. The faculty, drawn 
from our own and other states, was composed of the ablest and most 
progressive men and women in the profession, and the public lecturers 
provided a series of addresses more excellent and varied than was to be 
had at that time in any other teacher’s assembly in the United States. 

Thus for eight successive sessions this summer school reached out into 
the highways and hedges and for the first time in our annals brought 
together in an atmosphere of liberal culture and an environment rich in 
noble history large numbers of our public school teachers; imbued them . 
with a spirit of patriotic pride and unselfish devotion, and sent them 
back to their work dedicated spirits, apostles of light to their own and 
successive generations. It was here that future state institute conduc- 
tors, and superintendents of public instruction, and legislators and gov- 
ernors were quickened and inspired. It was here that Charles i. 
McIver caught his vision and received his anointing, and with Gaston’s 
State song upon his lips went forth with apostolic fervor to preach the 
doctrine of universal education. That song and the Battle spirit he 
carried to over a hundred institutes and more than 500 public gather- 
ings and later to 5,000 young women who under him were trained to 
become the teachers of more than 100,000 North Carolina citizens. 

To this Summer Normal School, directly or indirectly, are to be 
attributed not only the beginnings of summer session and institute work 
in this and other states but our great educational renaissance movement 
of the ’80s resulting in a demand for better schools and more efficient 
teachers, our system of city graded schools, the organized work of our 
State Teacher’s Assembly, the establishment of our several institutions 
for teacher training, the greatly enlarged scope of our State Depart- 
ment of Education and the liberal enrichment of our whole educational 
programme. 


Strats Lirerary anp HisroricaLt Association 129 


Thus was transmitted into many a home, school and community the 
Battle spirit, for, not to these only but to all who gathered at Chapel Hill 
during the 15 years of his presidency—students, professors, trustees, 
teachers, visitors—Dr. Battle was conveying the quickening flames of an 
intelligent pride, gratitude, hope, and ambition: pride in the State’s 
history, gratitude for her services, hope in her future, and a laudable 
ambition to have some part in furthering her material and spiritual 
welfare. 

And when of his own volition he retired from the Presidency in 1891, 
he handed over to his successor the new University—better equipped, 
better known, better loved; the acknowledged head of the State’s edu- 
cational system, co-laborer and encourager of progress and uplift, and 
dedicated to the service of all the people. 

In 1892, Dr. Battle entered wpon his duties as Alumni Professor of 
History. Here again for 15 years his rare personality was felt as 
a vital and inspirational factor in the lives of students and teachers. 
Would you know the value of his services? Read the testimony and 
review the labors of the men who were under him—Weeks, Randall— 
historian of the brush, Aycock, Alderman, McIver, and scores of 
others—the still-resident living—whose names I do not mention lest 
treacherous memory fail me in rendering tribute where tribute is so 
eminently due. 

Nor confine yourselves to the names of these most distinguished in 
their labors of transmission. Go into the schools and colleges wherever 
the State song is sung, where North Carolina Day is observed and North 
Carolina history taught; view the historic memorials—buildings, stat- 
utes, monuments, tablets, portraits and busts; visit the libraries and 
museums—public and private—preservative of our history, literature, 
ballads, folk-lore and memorials; trace all these back to their inspira- 
tional sources and it is safe to say that in the great majority of cases 
you will find them born of ideas and suggestions received from the 
teaching, the addresses, the letters, the writings of Kemp P. Battle. 

Dr. Battle’s printed contributions to history—memoirs, biographies, 
sketches and reminiscences, cover a wide variety of subjects. Omitting 
several of the briefer papers the list includes: The Lords Proprietors, 
Leaders of the Church of England in the Colonial Period, Colonial Lay- 
men in North Carolina, Glimpses of History in the Names of Our Coun- 
ties, North Carolina Worthies and Unworthies, Esther Wake, History of 
the City of Raleigh, The Catawba and Yadkin and Their Associations, 
History of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, Old Schools and 
Teachers of North Carolina, Legislation of the Convention of 1861, 
Trial of James Glasgow, biographical sketches of Gen. Jethro Sumner, 

9 


130 NuverrentH ANNUAL SESSION 


William Richardson Davie, Capt. Johnston Blakely, Otway Burns, 
Elisha Battle, James S. Battle, Wm. Smith Battle, Francis Little Dancy, 
Wm. A. Graham, John Marion Galloway, Col. Isaac Erwin Avery, Rev. 
Aldert Smedes, D.D., Zebulon B. Vance, Hinton James, Hon. John | 
Manning, Sketches of the University of North Carolina, the Rebirth 
of the University, Lives of the University Presidents, and History of 
the University of North Carolina, 1789-1912. 

Most valuable on this long list is his History of the University of 
North Carolina, in two volumes, awarded the Patterson Memorial Oup 
in 1907. With a blending of filial and paternal devotion the long story 
is vividly and lovingly told. In the words of Mrs. Cornelia Phillips 
Spencer—“No other could have written it, since no other had the 
experience, the opportunities, the attaimments or the spirit of affection- 
ate loyalty to Chapel Hill and the venerable State University.” 

‘Twenty-seven years ago it was my /privilege to register as one of Dr. 
Battle’s students, and four years later as Instructor in History and daily 
share of his office and class-room, to knit yet closer the ties of a friend- 
ship and gratitude that have grown with the years as more and more 
I have come to realize the extent of my indebtedness to his wholesome 
instruction and inspiring personality. 

It would little avail to speak thus personally of my indebtedness to 
Dr. Battle if the testimony were cited as single evidence of his useful- 
ness. Fortunately for the University and the cause of education, for 
the State and all its agencies of progress and uplift, there are scores here 
in our State Capital today and thousands of others in the State and 
Nation whose lives are living witnesses to the truth that he being dead 
yet speaketh. Our love for the State, our pride in its achievements, 
our faith in its future, our imterest in preserving its memorials, the 
numerous collections of Caroliniana—public and private—the study of 
North Carolina history in schools and colleges and by literary and his- 
torical clubs, the spirit of historical research and investigation, the 
publication of State and County histories, biographies, memoirs, 
sketches, educational and church records, letters, diaries, pamphlets and 
monographs, the work of the North Carolina Historical Commission, 
and of the State Literary and Historical Association—to what original 
source of inspiration shall we trace all these other than the personality 
and teachings of Kemp P. Battle? 

These are the offspring of his mind and heart; these the transmitted 
fruits of his spirit; these his ever-living, ever-expanding contributions 
to North Carolina history! 


Members 1918-1919 


ANNAPOLIS, MD. 
Cc. Alphonso Smith 


ANSONVILLE 
Wm. A. Smith 


ASHBORO 
William C. Hammer 


ASHEVILLE 


Junius G. Adams 

S. Westray Battle 

Mrs. S. Westray Battle 
Robert Bingham, 

Louis M. Bourne 

C. J. Harris 

F. R. Hewitt 

S. Lipinsky 

Junius C. Martin 
Haywood Parker 

Miss Florence Stephenson 
George T. Winston 


AURORA 
Miss Lottie Hale Bonner 


BALTIMORE, MD. 


Bruce Cotten 
F. B. Dancy 


BARIUM SPRINGS 
William Laurie Hill 


BILTMORE 


Miss Cornelia P. Vanderbilt 


BOONE 
I. G. Greer 


BOSTON, MASS. 
-Mrs. W. H. Potter 


BREVARD 
W. E. Breese 


BROWNWOOD, TEXAS 
Mrs. J. A. Walter 


BRUCE 


R. R. Cotten 
Mrs. R. R. Cotten 


BRYSON CITY 
Horace Kephart 


BURNSVILLE 
James L. Webb 


CHAPEL HILL 


John M. Booker 

E. C. Branson 
Collier Cobb 

Mrs. J. W. Gore 

J. G. deR. Hamilton 
Archibald Henderson 
George Howe 

H. W. Knight 

L. P. McGehee 

A. C. McIntosh 

Miss H. Noa 

W. W. Pierson, Jr. 
Walter D. Toy 

N. W. Walker 

L. A. Williams 

H. V. Wilson 

Louis R. Wilson 


CHARLOTTE 


Miss Julia Alexander 
Miss Violet Alexander 
John L. Chambers 
Mrs. E. M. Cole 

Mrs. I. W. Faison 
Mrs. J. A. Fore 
Archibald Graham 
Mrs. C. C. Hook 

F. B. McDowell 

Mrs. F. B. McDowell 
John A. Parker 

H. N. Pharr 

George Stephens 

Mrs. John Van Landingham 
A. H. Washburn 

J. Frank Wilkes 


132 NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION 


CLAYTON 
C. W. Horne 
Mrs. J J. Miesenheimer 
Mrs. Hardee Horne 
Mrs. Herbert McCullers 


CLINTON 
H. E. Faison 


COLUMBIA 
Mark Majette 


DAVIDSON 
J. K. Justice 

Thomas W. Lingle 

J. M. McConnell 

Miss Cornelia Shaw 


DURHAM 
W. K. Boyd 

Frank C. Brown 

Victor S. Bryant 

Julian S. Carr 

W. F. Carr 

Mrs. Sadie Smedes Erwin 
R. O. Everett 

W. P. Few 

T. B. Fuller 

William H. Glasson 

John Sprunt Hill 
Southgate Jones 

W. T. Laprade 

M. L. Lowery 

_E. K. Powe 

Mrs. E. K. Powe 

R. H. Sykes 

George W. Watts 


EDENTON 
W. M. Bond 

E. R. Conger 

R. B. Drane 

Mrs. W. A. Graham 
Frank Wood 

John G. Wood 


ELIZABETH CITY 
E. F. Aydlett 

J. C. B. Ehringhaus 

H. T. Greenleaf 

John K. Wilson 


ENFIELD 
Mrs. E. L. Whitehead 


FAISON 
Miss Winifred Faison 
Miss Georgia Hicks 
Mrs. Marshall Williams 


FAYETTEVILLE 


Mrs. John H. Anderson 
J. H. Currie 

Cc. C. McAlister 

Q. K. Nimocks 

Mrs. Charles Rankin 


FLORENCE, S. C. 
F. L. Willcox 


GARYSBURG 
T. W. Mason 


GASTONIA 


A. G. Mangum 
A. L. Bulwinkle 


GOLDSBORO 


W. R. Allen 

F. A. Daniels 

Miss Mary F. DeVane 
George E. Hood 

G. A. Norwood 
George C. Royall 
Miss Gertrude Weil 


GREENVILLE 
Miss Sallie Joyner Davis 
Harry Skinner 


GREENVILLE, S. C. 
Miss Rosa Paschal 


GREENSBORO 
A. L. Brooks 
Mrs. A. L. Brooks 
J. I. Foust 
W. C. Jackson 
R. R. King 
Miss Annie F. Petty 
A. M. Scales 
Paul Schenck 
W. C. Smith 
Charles M. Stedman 
R. C. Strudwick 


Spare Lirerary aNnp HistorircaL AssocIATION 


Charles L. Van Noppen 


Mrs. Charles L. Van Noppen 


J. Norman Wills 


GUILFORD COLLEGE 


Miss Julia S. White 


HENDERSON 


Kittrell 
rs. ies Parham 
Mrs. S. T. Peace 
T. M. Pittman 


D. 
F. 
be 
J. 

M 


HERTFORD 
Charles Whedbee 


HICKORY 
M. E. Thornton 


HIGH POINT 
W. J. Armfield 
Miss Clara I. Cox 
J. Elwood Cox 
Miss Rebecca Cameron 
S. M. Gattis 


HOLDEN, MO. 
O. G. Boisseau 


JACKSONVILLE 
Frank Thompson 


KINSTON 
G. V. Cowper 

K. R. Curtis 

Ira M. Hardy 

C. Felix Harvey 

Mrs. C. Felix Harvey 
Mrs. W. T. Hines 

L. J. Mewborne 

H. E. Shaw 

Mrs. J. F. Taylor 


LATTA, S. ©. 
Andrew J. Howell 


LEXINGTON 
J. R. McCrary 
Z. V. Walser 
Z. I. Walser 
S. E. Williams 


LIBERTY 
W. H. Albright 


LOUISBURG 
Ivey Allen 

William H. Ruffin 

D. T. Smithwick 

Mrs. D. T. Smithwick 


LUMBERTON 
A. W. McLean 


c= 


inborne 


MOCKSVILLE 
HE. L. Gaither 


MONROE 
R. ‘B. Redwine 


MOORESVILLE 


Mrs. George C. Goodman 
Miss Vernie Goodman 


MORGANTON 
E. McK. Goodwin 


MOUNT AIRY 


Miss Isabel Graves 
S. P. Graves 
Mrs. R. L. Penn 


NEW BERN 
S. M. Brinson 


NEW YORE, N. Y. 


George Gordon Battle 
W. W. Flowers 

H. H. Horne 

Mrs. J. W. Miller 

Miss Lucile W. Murchison 
John S. Primrose 


NEWTON 
A. D. Wolfinger 


NORFOLK, VA. 
W. D. Pender 


NORTH WILKESBORO 


Mrs. Gordon Hackett 


133 


134 NivnereentoH Annuat Szssion 


OLD FORT 
Miss Lennie Greenlee 


OXFORD 
Mrs. H. C. Pinnix 


PITTSBORO 


J H. Cordon 
Miss Carrie Jackson 
Mrs. H. A. London 


RALEIGH 
A. T. Allen 
W. R. Allen 
Albert Anderson 
A. B. Andrews 
Mrs. A. B. Andrews 
William J. Andrews 
Mrs. William J. Andrews 
Mrs. George Alston 
S. A. Ashe 
Cc. A. Ashby 
Mrs. J. S. Atkinson 
Mrs. C. B. Aycock 
Miss Mattie H. Bailey 
J. W. Bailey 
Mrs. A. L. Baker 
Kemp P. Battle 
A. P. Bauman 
Mrs. S. E. Bear 
R. F. Beasley 
E. C. Beddingfield 
T. W. Bickett 
Mrs. T. W. Bickett 
J. Crawford Biggs 
Mrs. C. P. Blalock 
John H,. Boushall 
J. D. Boushall 
Miss Sarah Bradford 
L. C. Brogden 
Charles E. Brewer 
Miss Elizabeth Briggs 
F. H. Briggs 
T. H. Briggs 
Mrs. T. H. Briggs 
W. G. Briggs 
Miss Carrie Broughton 
J. M. Broughton 
Joseph G. Brown 
Mrs. Charles Busbee 
Bennehan Cameron 


Mrs. Bennehan Cameron 
N. G. Carroll 

Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain 
Joseph B. Cheshire 
Mrs. Joseph B. Cheshire 
Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr. 
Walter Clark 

Mrs. Will X. Coley 
Miss Elizabeth Colton 
R. D. W. Connor 

J. M. Costner 

Mrs. L. E. Covington 
B. G. Cowper 

Albert L. Cox 

W. C. Cram 

W. C. Cram, Jr. 

Miss Flora Creech 

E. B. Crow 

Ernest Cruikshank 
Mrs. Ernest Cruikshank 
Josephus Daniels 

Miss May Hill Davis 
Miss Penelope Davis 
Miss Daisy Denson 
Clyde Douglas 

E. C. Duncan 

Mrs. E. C. Duncan 
Mrs. L. P. Duncan 
Baxter Durham 

Miss Ellen Durham 
Mrs. D. Elias 

J. S. Farmer 

David I. Fort 

Mrs. David I. Fort 

J. L. Fountain 

Mrs. J. L. Fountain 
Miss Mary O. Graham 
W. A. Graham 

Mrs. B. H. Griffin 

Miss Sophie Grimes 

J. Bryan Grimes 

Mrs. J. Bryan Grimes 
W. B. Grimes 

Mrs. W. B. Grimes 

F. M. Harper 

Mrs. J. C. L. Harris 
T. P. Harrison 

Mrs. T. P. Harrison 
Ernest Haywood 

F. P. Haywood 
Marshall DeL. Haywood 


Spare LITERARY AND HisroricaL AssocraTIoN 


R. W. Haywood 
Henry T. Hicks 
D. H. Hill 


Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton 


Mrs. J. W. Hinsdale 
F. W. Hirth 

R. B. House 

Miss Mary B. Hubbard 
A. B. Hunter 

Carey J. Hunter 

J. Rufus Hunter 

Miss Margaret Ingraham 
B. S. Jerman 

Charles E. Johnson 
Mrs. Charles E. Johnson 
W. N. Jones 

J. Y. Joyner 

B. W. Kilgore 

Mrs. Paul Lee 

R. H. Lewis 

H. M. London 

Mrs. H. M. London 

B. O. Luttman 

Mrs. B. O. Luttman 
Miss Mary McClellan 
Mrs. Charles McKimmon 
Franklin McNeill 

Mrs. Franklin McNeill 
R. Y. McPherson 
James S. Manning 

W. F. Marshall 

Mrs. Ruth H. Moore 
Ww. A. Montgomery 

F. O. Moring* 

Mrs. F. O. Moring 
Hugh Morson 

Frank Nash 

Mrs. M. T. Norris 
Miss Mary B. Palmer 
Mrs. George Pell 

E. F. Pescud 

Clarence Poe 

Mrs. Clarence Poe 
Joseph EH. Pogue 

Mrs. Joseph H. Pogue 
Miss Ida Poteat 

Mrs. Ivan Procter 
George J. Ramsey 

Mrs. R. B. Raney 

W. S. Rankin 


* Dead. 


W. T. Reaves 

Miss Mattie Reese 
W. C. Riddick 
Charles Root 

Mrs. M. Rosenthal 
H. A. Royster 

W. I. Royster 

Joe Seawell 

Shaw University 
Mrs. M. B. Sherwood 
Mrs. M. B. Shipp 
Charles Lee Smith 
Ed. Chambers Smith 


Mrs. Ed. Chambers Smith 
Miss Mary Shannon Smith 


Willis Smith 

A. G. Spingler 

Leon Spitz 

J. F. Stanback 

Mrs. J. F. Stanback 
W. E. Stone 

Mrs. E. E. Swindell* 
A. A. Thompson* 
Julian B. Timberlake 
Mrs. V. E. Turner 

Ry Ts Vann: 

W. W. Vass 

Mrs. W. W. Vass 
Platt D. Walker 

W. W. Way 

Wm. H. Williamson 
Mrs. J. M. Winfree 
R. W. Winston 

Ww. A. Withers 

W. P. Wood 


RED SPRINGS 
C. G. Vardell 


REIDSVILLE 


Tuesday Afternoon Reading Club 


RICHMOND, VA. 
Mrs. H. W. Jackson 
Henry E. Litchford 

Mrs. E. EB. Moffitt 

W. W. Moore 


RICH SQUARE 
Andrew J. Conner 


135 


136 NineteentH ANNUAL SESSION 


ROANOKE RAPIDS 


A. HE. Akers 


ROCKINGHAM 


W. R. Coppedge 
W. N. Everett 


ROCKY MOUNT 


Thomas H. Battle 
J. C. Braswell 


R. H. Ricks* 

F. S. Spruill 
ROXBORO 

BE. J. Tucker 
SALISBURY 


Mrs. John S. Henderson 
Mrs. Mamie G. McCubbins 
Mrs. James P. Moore 
Mrs. James H. Ramsey 
Mrs. Edwin R. Overman 
Lee S. Overman 


SCOTLAND NECK 
Charles Shields 


SHELBY 


I. C. Griffin 
Robert L. Ryburn 


SMITHFIELD 


SOUTHPORT 


Cc. L. Stevens 
Mrs. C. L. Stevens 


SPRAY 
Mrs. B. Frank Mebane 


STATESVILLE 


Mrs. D. M. Ausley 
D. Matt Thompson 


* Dead. 


TARBORO 

R. H. Bachman 

J. L. Bridgers 

Mrs. C. M. Parks 

Mrs. Jacksie Daniels Thrash 


TIMBERLAKE 
R. B. Holeman 


URBANA, ILL. 
Mrs. F.. L. Stevens 


WAKE FOREST 


Mrs. Ethel Crittenden 
Mrs. Jessie P. Harnshaw 
C. C. Pearson 

Hubert Poteat 

W. L. Poteat 

Mrs. W. L. Poteat 

W. R. Powell 

Mrs. W. R. Powell 

H. T. Shanks 

B. F. Sledd 

Mrs. Helen Poteat Stallings 


WARRENTON 
J. H. Kerr 
Mrs. J. H. Kerr 
Tasker Polk 


WASHINGTON, D. C. 
B. F. Johnson 


WASHINGTON 


Stephen Bragaw 

J. EH. Clark 

Mrs. S. R. Fowle 

Miss Lida T. Rodman 

Miss Marcia Rodman Myers 
Mrs. Lucy Warren Myers 
John H. Small 

Edward L. Stewart 


WELDON 
W. E. Daniel 


WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS 
Mrs. Swannanoa H. Priddy 


Srate Lirerary AND 


WILLIAMSTON 
Wilson G. Lamb 


WILMINGTON 


John D. Bellamy 

J. J. Blair 

Mrs. Hubert Bluethenthal 
J. O. Carr 

Cc. C. Covington 

W. J. Craig 
Thomas W. Davis 
Theo G. Empie 

H. G. Foard 

B. F. Hall 

Miss Susan E. Hall 
Woodus Kellum 
William Latimer 

J. G. McCormick 
W. B. McKoy 


~ Donald McRae 


Eric Norden 

P. Pearsall 

M. T. Plyler 

J. F. Roache 
George Rountree 
James Sprunt 
W. H. Sprunt 
M. S. Willard 


Hisroricat AssocraTIon 137 


WILSON 
J. F. Bruton 
Mrs. J. F. Bruton 
J. Dempsey Bullock 
H. G. Connor 
Mrs. H. G. Connor 
Charles L. Coon 
Jonas Oettinger 
W. F. Woodard 
Mrs. W. F. Woodard 


WINDSOR 
Francis D. Winston 


WINSTON-SALEM 
Mrs. Henry T. Bahnson 
William A. Blair 
Burton Craige 
Mrs. M. F. P. Fearrington 
Miss Adelaide Fries 
H. E. Fries 
John W. Fries 
James A. Gray 
Mrs. James A. Gray 
Clement Manly 
Mrs. Lindsay Patterson 
William S. Pfohl 
Mrs. R. J. Reynolds 
Mrs. W. N. Reynolds 
Edward Rondthaler 
Howard Rondthaler 
Mrs. W. O. Spencer 
Wachovia Historical Society 


SW 
i) 


EIGHTH BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


North Carolina Historical Commission 


December 1, 1918, to 
November 30, 1920 


RALEIGH 
Epwarps & BRouGHTON PRINTING Co., 
State PRINTERS. 
1921 


North Carolina Historical Commission 


J. Bryan Grimes, Raleigh, Chaurman 
Franx Woop, Edenton 
M. C. S. Nosrz, Chapel Hill 
D. H. Hir1, Raleigh 
Tuomas M. Pirrman, Henderson 


R. D. W. Connor, Secretary, Raleigh 


Letter of Transmission 


To His Excellency, 
Hon. T. W. Bicxert, 
Governor of North Carolina. 

Str :—I have the honor to submit herewith for your Excellency’s con- 
sideration the Biennial Report of the North Carolina Historical Com- 
mission, for December 1, 1918-November 30, 1920. 

Respectfully, 
J. Bryan Grimus, 
Chairman. 
RateicH, N. C., January, 1921. 


BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


Secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission 


DECEMBER 1, 1918, TO NOVEMBER 30, 1920 


To Hon. J. Bryan Grimus, Chairman, Mussrs. D. H. Hitt, Tuomas M. 
Pirrman, M. C. 8. Nozrz, anp Franx Woop, Commissioners. 


GrenTLEMEN :—I have the honor to submit the following report of the 
work of the North Carolina Historical Commission for the period De- 
cember 1, 1918-November 30, 1920. 


ORGANIZATION 


On April 1, 1919, the terms of Messrs. Thomas M. Pittman and 
M. C. S. Noble expired, but both were reappointed by the Governor for 
the term ending March 31, 1925. 

Mr. W. J. Peele, who had served on the Commission since its organi- 
zation in 1903, died on March 27, 1919, and to the vacancy thus created 
the Governor appointed Mr. Frank Wood, of Edenton, whose term will 
expire March 31, 1928. 

At a meeting of the Commission held April 3, 1919, Hon. J. Bryan 
Grimes was reélected chairman, and R. D. W. Connor secretary, for the 
term ending March 31, 1921. 

The vacancy in the office of legislative reference librarian, created 
by the death of Mr. W. S. Wilson, December 18, 1918, was filled at a 
meeting of the Commission held July 11, 1919, by the election of Mr. 
Henry M. London, who entered upon his duties August 1, 1919. His 
term will end on March 31, 1921. 


Witi1am JosepH PEELE 


In the death of Mr. William J. Peele the Commission lost not only 
its oldest member in point of service, but also the man to whom pri- 
marily it owes its existence. The idea was his. He wrote the bill 
which created this Commission and secured its enactment into law. 
Appointed by Governor Aycock its first member, he was promptly 
selected by his colleagues as its first chairman and held that position 
until his voluntary retirement in 1907. 

2 


6 EieutH Brennzat Report. 


Under Mr. Peele’s chairmanship the Commission was organized and 
began its work. Its beginnings were modest in the extreme. With an 
annual appropriation of only $500, with a law which forbade the em- 
ployment of any salaried official, without a staff, office, or equipment, 
or any provision for them for the first four years of its existence, the 
North Carolina Historical Commission was scarcely more than an idea. 
It was Mr. Peele’s idea, and it was he who breathed into it the breath of 
life. How well he did it the history and development of the Commis- 
sion itself, its present quarters and equipment, the existence of its 
present staff, its numerous lines of activity, its rich and varied collec- 
tions, and its high reputation among its kind throughout the country, 
testify more convincingly than any words of ours. Mr. Peele’s interest 
in the Commission was constant and intelligent, his services were quiet 
but invaluable, and he rarely attended a meeting which he did not signal- 
ize by some stimulating suggestion which helped to give vitality to its 
work. 


Orrice Force 


During the period covered by this report the following have composed 
the permanent staff of the office: 


Secretary, R. D. W. Connor. 

Legislative Reference Librarian, W. S. Wilson, December 1-18, 1918; 
H. M. London, since August 1, 1919. 

Collector for the Hall of History, Fred A. Olds. 

Collector of World War Records, Robert B. House, since June 19, 1919. 

Restorer of Manuscripts, Mrs. J. M. Winfree. 

Stenographer, Miss Marjory Terrell. 

Stenographer, Miss Sophie Busbee. 

File Clerk, Mrs. William S. West. 

Messenger, William Birdsall. 


The following were employed temporarily for special services: 


Acting Legislative Reference Librarian, Robert H. Sykes, January 8- 
April 1, 1919. 

Assistant Legislative Reference Librarian, William T. Joyner, Janu- 
ary 8-March 11, 1919; August 1-31, 1920. 

Stenographer, Mrs. W. S. Wilson, December 1-18, 1918. 

Stenographer, Miss Alice Moffitt, since September 7, 1920. 

File Clerk, Mrs. F. M. Stronach, December 1, 1918-March 6, 1919. 


DIVISION OF DOCUMENTS 


ExecuTivE Paprrs 


The papers of the following governors, transferred from the Gov- 
ernor’s office, were properly arranged and filed: 


N. ©. Histortcat Commission. iG 


Blias Carr, 1893-1897. 

Daniel L. Russell, 1897-1901. 
Charles B. Aycock, 1901-1905. 
Robert B. Glenn, 1905-1909. 
William W. Kitchin, 1909-1913. 


They number 14,356 pieces. 


HistTorican Manuscripts 


The following collections of historical manuscripts were arranged and 
made ready for use: 


William A. Graham Papers, 1776-1875. 
A. L. Brooks Collection, 1758-1875. 
Rice Letters, 1811-1821. 

Joseph Graham Papers, 1813-1836. 
Lewis Letters, 1835-1863. 


County Recorps 


As a rule marriage bonds received from the counties are without sys- 
tematic arrangement. Those received from the following counties were 
filed alphabetically by counties: Burke, Bute, Caswell, Chatham, Cum- 
berland, Currituck, Duplin, Halifax, Haywood, Johnston, Perquimans, 
Person, Rockingham, Stokes, and Warren. 


Reparr or Manuscripts 


The work of repairing, reinforcing, and mounting manuscripts pre- 
paratory to permanent binding, has been continued along the lines dis- 
cussed in previous reports and perfectly familiar to the members of 
the Commission. 

Collections so treated during this period number 8,666 manuscripts, 
of which 6,208 were repaired, 2,939 were reinforced with crepeline, and 
3,205 were mounted ready for binding. 


ALBEMARLE County Rercorps 


Most of the manuscripts treated in the repair department were (1) 
papers of the County of Albemarle and (2) papers of Chowan precinct. 
They form, perhaps, the most valuable unpublished collection of Colonial 
documents in the State. Stored away in the courthouse of Chowan 
County, they received, until very recent years, but little care and atten- 
tion from the local officials. They were open to everybody who cared to 
look at them, without supervision, and have been badly damaged from 
improper handling. Many important papers originally in the collec- 


8 Eieutu Brennirat Report. 


tion have been lost or stolen. It was not until Mr. Frank Wood became 
chairman of the Chowan County Board of Commissioners that steps 
were taken to remedy this condition. It was through his efforts that 
the papers were finally sent to the North Carolina Historical Commis- 
sion to be put in good shape, the Commission agreeing to do the work 
without expense to the County. After the Commission has completed 
its work on them, the papers are to be substantially bound and returned 
to the courthouse at Edenton. 

Under all the circumstances it seems exceedingly regrettable that these 
original records, running so far back into our history, should not remain 
in the fireproof rooms provided by the State for such valuable docu- 
ments. I trust that the Commission will urge the County Commission- 
ers of Chowan County to consider two points before they finally decide 
on the disposition of these papers. The first is that a large part of 
those records are more than the record of Chowan County—they are 
the records of the far larger county of Albemarle, and, as Albemarle 
was the parent settlement of North Carolina, they are the records of 
North Carolina. Hence, they are interesting not merely to the citizens 
of Chowan County, but to every man and woman who is engaged in 
a study of North Carolina and, in order to be available to a large num- 
ber of students of history, ought to be in the custody of the State. 

It is impossible for Chowan, or any other county, properly to care 
for and administer these historical records. In the first place, the 
courthouse is not a fireproof structure. Nor has it the space and 
equipment necessary for the proper care and administration of such 
records. Available space in the courthouse, as well as the time and 
attention of county officials, must necessarily be devoted to the rec- 
ords in current use. Such officials have not the time, and but rarely 
the inclination, to administer records of an historical value merely, or to 
exercise proper supervision over their use by others. It is a constant 
complaint of people engaged in historical research in North Carolina 
that county officials will not answer their letters inquiring as to the 
existence of such records, or requesting certified copies from them. No 
single county is peculiar in this respect; the situation prevails in every 
county in the State, and it was in recognition of this fact, and a desire 
to provide a proper remedy for it, that the Legislature wrote into the. 
Act of 1907, under which the Historical Commission is at present 
organized, the following section: 


Src. 5. Any state, county, town or other public official in custody of public 
documents is hereby authorized and empowered in his discretion to turn 
over to said Commission for preservation any official books, records, docu- 
ments, original papers, newspaper files, printed books or portraits, not in 
current use in his office, and said Commission shall provide for their perma- 


N. C. Histrortcat Commisston. 9 


nent preservation; and when so surrendered, copies therefrom shall be made 
and certified under the seal of the Commission upon application of any per- 
son, which certification shall have the same force and effect, as if made by the 
officer originally in charge of them, and the Commission shall charge for such 
copies the same fees as said officer is by law allowed to charge, to be col- 
lected in advance. 


Forty-seven counties have taken advantage of this law to deposit with 
the Historical Commission their records not in current use, thus (1) 
relieving the congestion in their courthouses and making room for 
rapidly accumulating current records; (2) placing their historical rec- 
ords where they will be properly preserved and administered in a fire- 
proof structure; and (3) making them available for historical purposes. 
Incidentally, it may be observed that scarcely a day passes that some 
investigator does not call at the Commission’s rooms to consult these 
county records. 

It seems to me to be perfectly apparent that Chowan County will 
consult her own interests, as well as the interests of the State, by fol- 
lowing the example of these forty-seven other counties in the disposition 
of her records of purely historical value, and I recommend that the 
Commission make a formal request to the county officials to take this 
course, setting forth the reasons upon which such request is based. 


BInpDiIne 


During the period covered by this report 36 volumes of manuscripts, 
containing (approximately) 4,070 pieces, have been bound, as follows: 


Tillie Bond Manuscripts, 1690-1828, 2 vols. 

L. O’B. Branch Papers, 1861-1862, 1 vol. 

Brevard Papers, 1769-1867, 2 vols. 

John L. Cantwell Papers, 1855-1896, 1 vol. 

Papers of the Convention of 1788, 1 vol. 

Papers of the Convention of 1789, 1 vol. 

Governors’ Papers; State Series, Vols. I-XV, 1777-1787, embracing the 
papers of— 


(1) Gov. Richard Caswell, 1777-1780, 5 vols. 
(2) Gov. Abner Nash, 1780-1781, 1 vol. 

(3) Gov. Thomas Burke, 1781-1782, 3 vols. 
(4) Gov. Alexander Martin, 1782-1785, 1 vol. 
(5) Gov. Richard Caswell, 1785-1787, 5 vols. 


Thomas Henderson Letter-book, 1810-1811, 1 vol. 

Proceedings of the Court-martial of Col. Charles McDowell, 1882, 1 vol. 
Miscellaneous Papers: Series One, 1755-1912, 4 vols. 

Onslow County Records: Wills, 1757-1783, 1 vol. 


10 EieutuH BrenniaL Report. 


Onslow County Records: Wills and Inventories, 1774-1790, 1 vol. 

Proceedings of the Wilmington-New Hanover Committee of Safety, 
1774-1776, 1 vol. 

Shaw Papers, 1764-1861, 1 vol. 

Z. B. Vance Papers, Vols. XVI-XVIII, 1857-1902, 3 vols. 


The following eight volumes of manuscript records were rebound: 


North Carolina Revolutionary Army Accounts: Receipt Book. 
Accounts of the United States with North Carolina, War of the Revolu- 
tion, Book A. 


Accounts of the United States with North Carolina, War of the Revolu- 
tion, Book C. 

Statement of Army Accounts No. 19, War of the Revolution. 

Abstract of Army Accounts: North Carolina Line, War of the Revolu- 
tion; Book of Settlements, No. 28. 

Accounts of the Comptroller’s Office, War of the Revolution, 1777-1783. 

Minutes of the Commissioners of the Town of Tarborough, 1760-1793. 

Book of Registers, Collector’s Office, Port of Roanoke, 1725-1758. 


InpEx To Revotutionary Army Accounts 


Work has been continued on the card index to the Revolutionary Army 
Accounts as described in previous reports. Since my last report 
indexes have been made to the names in eight volumes, which complete 
the cards for 20 volumes. These manuscript records contain the ac- 
counts submitted by the State to the United States for settlement of our 
Revolutionary accounts after the Federal Government had assumed 
the debts contracted by the States in the War for Independence. They 
are valuable as a source for study of our Revolutionary history and are 
indispensable to the genealogist. The task of making a card index to 
the tens of thousands of names found in them has not been an easy one. 
It has been slow, tedious and expensive, but will be justified by opening 
up to the investigator what has hitherto been almost a closed mine of 
historical material. The work is now nearing completion. 


ACCESSIONS 


Appitions to Former CoLLECcTIONS 


To collections already begun of the papers of George E. Badger, 
William Gaston, L. O’B. Branch, John Branch, D. H. Hill, William R. 
Davie, John Steele, and Zebulon B. Vance a few additions, from one to 
half a dozen pieces each, have been made. 

The most important additions to such collections are as follows: 

Watrer Crark Paprrs.—To this collection of his personal papers, 
Chief Justice Clark has added 2,770 pieces. This is now one of the 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission. 11 


largest and most interesting collections of personal papers in our posses- 
sion, numbering all told 3,969 pieces. 

Witum A. Granam Papers.—To this collection of his father’s papers, 
Major W. A. Graham has added 471 pieces, dating from 1776-1875, and 
containing, besides numerous letters written by Governor Graham him- 
self, letters written to him by William Gaston, Edward Stanly, Daniel 
Webster, George E. Badger, Henry Clay, David L. Swain, Wilhe P. 
Mangum, John M. Morehead, William T. Sherman, and Z. B, Vance. 

Miscettanrous Paprrs.—From various sources the Commission re- 
ceived 40 miscellaneous manuscripts, among which are letters of Gen. 
Rufus Barringer, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Jefferson Davis, Gen. R. F. 
Hoke, Gov. A. M. Seales, Gov. John M. Morehead, Gov. Abner Nash, 
Matt W. Ransom, R. M. Saunders, W. T. Dortch, Hinton Rowan Helper, 
and Col. John Tipton. 


New Coxzections 


Wortp War Recorps.—The largest and most important of our new 
collections are those grouped under this head. More than 100,000 
pieces, consisting of both official and personal records of North Carolina’s 
part in the World War, have been received. For further details of 
this collection reference should be made to Mr. House’s report sub- 
mitted below. 

A. L. Brooxs Cotzection.—From Hon. A. L. Brooks the Commis- 
sion received a collection of interesting autographs. Among them are 
autograph letters of Governors Richard Caswell, Thomas Burke, Alex- 
ander Martin, William Hawkins, H. C. Burton, David Stone, John 
Owen, Edward B. Dudley, David L. Swain, John W. Ellis, Henry T. 
Clark, Jonathan Worth and Curtis H. Brogden. The collection contains 
24 pieces. 

JosppH Granam Paprers.—Major W. A. Graham presented to the 
Commission a collection of 90 manuscripts of his grandfather, Gen. 
Joseph Graham, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution and one of 
the early industrial leaders in North Carolina. The collection dates 
from 1813 to 1836. 

Hittssoro Acaprmy.—From Hon. Frank Nash the Commission re- 
ceived a small manuscript volume of 10 pages, entitled: “Accompts. for 
Hillsborough Academy,” 1784. 

Lewis Letrers—Miss Annie Lewis, of Raleigh, presented a collec- 
tion of 18 letters of the Lewis family, dating from 1835 to 1863, inter- 
esting because of the glimpses they give us into the social life of the 
period. 


12 EientH Brenniat Report. 


Moorr-WappEtt Paprrs.—This is a collection of 48 pieces relating 
to the Moore and Waddell families, presented by Mr. O. C. Erwin of 
Morganton. 


ReevuLtator Recorps.—In 1886 Mr. Julius Brown, of Georgia, pur- 
chased from W. E. Benjamin, of New York, two manuscript volumes 
containing official records of Governor Tryon’s expedition against the 
Regulators in 1771. These volumes, according to our information, were 
formerly in possession of Sir Henry Clinton and were bought by Mr. 
Benjamin at a sale of Sir Henry’s papers. Upon the death of Mr. 
Julius Brown they passed into the possession of his brother, Hon. 
Joseph E. Brown, formerly governor of Georgia, who thought that, being 
important documents in the history of North Carolina, they properly 
belonged in this State. Accordingly, in February, 1919, Governor 
Brown brought the documents in person to Raleigh and formally pre- 
sented them to the State through the Historical Commission. They are: 


(1)—Orders given by/ His Excellency Governor Tryon/ to the Pro- 
vincials of North Carolina/ raised to march against/ Insurgents. [Written 
on the inside cover]: Book Aide du Camp. [The last two pages con- 
tain]: Report of the Provincial Army Whilst Encamped at Husbands, Sandy 
Creek, 22 May, 1771. Quarto, bound in parchment. 108 pages. 


(2).—Journal of the Expedition agst the Insurgents/ in the Western Fron- 
tiers of North Carolina beginning the 20th April, 1771. [Contains]: A 
PLAN of the CAMP and BATTLE off ALAMANCE, the 16th May 1771, 
Between the Provincials of North Carolina, Commanded/ By His Excellency 
Governor TRYON, and/ Rebels who style themselves Regulators. Surveyed 
and drawn by C. J. Southier. Quarto, 50 pages. 


Rice Lerrrrs.—This is a collection of 15 letters of Rev. John H. Rice 
and Rev. Benjamin H. Rice, eminent Presbyterian ministers, all written 
to Rev. William McPheeters, from 1811 to 1821, relating to the affairs 
of the Presbyterian Church in North Carolina and Virginia. They 
were presented to the Commission by Hon. Benjamin Rice Lacy. 


Srrinerietp Paprrs.—This collection consists of three documents 
relating to Thomas’ Legion of Cherokee Indians in the Confederate 
Army, written by Major W. W. Stringfield. They are: 

(1) Diary for 1864 of W. W. Stringfield, major of the 69th Regiment 
(Thomas’ Legion), Jackson’s Brigade, Ransom’s Division, Longstreet’s 
Corps, C. S. A.; 

(2) Major Stringfield’s manuscript, “History of Thomas’s Legion,” ; 

(3) “Historical Sketch of the 69th North Carolina Infantry,” by 
W. W. Stringfield, Lieutenant-Colonel, from January 1 to August 25, 
1864. 


N. C. Historica Commission. 1133 


Grorce W. Swerson Paprrs.—This is one of the most valuable of 
our new collections. It embraces 438 pieces, dating from 1866 to 1870, 
and contains many letters from most of the leaders of Reconstruction in 
North Carolina. Among them are A. W. Tourgee, W. W. Holden, 
Joseph C. Abbott, and Martin S. Littlefield. There are also letters from 
Jonathan Worth, Patrick H. Winston, Z. B, Vance, Thomas L. Cling- 
man, Matt W. Ransom, A. S. Merrimon, and R. F. Hoke. The collec- 
tion was presented by Mr. A. L. Baker of Raleigh. 


Tarsoro Town Recorps.—From Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire the 
Commission received a manuscript volume of the original “Minutes of 
the Commissioners of the Town of Tarborough, 1760-1793.” 


Waxe County Lapvres’ Memoriat Assocration.—The Wake County 
Ladies’ Memorial Association, the oldest Confederate memorial organiza- 
tion in the State, with a continuous existence since 1866, deposited with 
the Commission the following records: 


(1) Blue print of the Confederate Cemetery at Washington. 


(2) Roster of Confederate soldiers buried in the Confederate Ceme- 
tery at Raleigh. 


(3) Minutes of the Wake County Ladies’ Memorial Association, 1866- 
1882. 


(4) Volume in manuscript entitled: Ladies’ Memorial Association; 
Lists of Original Interments; the Arlington Dead. 


(5) List of members of the Wake County Ladies’ Memorial Asso- 
ciation. 


Conrreperate Muster Rotis.—Muster roll of Co. B, 1st Regiment, 
North Carolina Junior Reserves, R. H. Andrews, lieutenant in com- 
mand, 1865. Two copies presented by Mr. W. J. Andrews of Raleigh. 


Woritp War Recorps 


As soon as the United States entered the World War, historical agen- 
cies throughout the country recognized the necessity of inaugurating at 
once systematic efforts to preserve the immense volumes of material 
which war conditions would produce of value for the history of the 
war. The immensity of the task was appalling, and most of the his- 
torical commissions, societies, and other organizations were not equipped 
with sufficient means to accomplish it adequately. 

Among such insufficiently equipped agencies was the North Carolina 
Historical Commission, which had neither the funds nor the staff to 
perform the task for the State of North Carolina, as it ought to be done. 
To enable it to meet the problem as effectively as possible, the Commis- 
sion sought the codperation of the State Council of Defense, at the head 

3 


14 EieutH Brennirat REport. 


of which, fortunately, was a member of the Historical Commission. 
The Council met us sympathetically and appointed an Historical Com- 
mittee of the State Council of Defense with the Secretary of the His- 
torical Commission as chairman. Thus the strength of these two organi- 
zations was combined for the task. Not much could be accomplished, 
however, in the collection of material, but important results were 
effected in calling attention to the importance of preserving it and 
foundations were laid for the more permanent work that was to come. 
This more permanent work has been made possible by the law passed by 
the General Assembly of 1919, upon the recommendation of the His: 
torical Commission, and empowering the Commission to appoint a col- 
lector of World War records, giving official sanction to the work, and 
providing money for its support. The chief provisions of the law are 
as follows: 


“Spc. 3. That for the purpose of putting into permanent and accessible 
form the history of the contribution of North Carolina and of her soldiers, 
sailors, airmen, and civilians to the Great World War while the records 
of those contributions are available, the North Carolina Historical Commis- 
sion is hereby authorized and directed to employ a person trained in the study 
of history and in modern historical methods of investigation and writing, 
whose duty it shall be, under the direction of said Historical Commission, to 
collect as fully as possible data bearing upon the activities of North Carolina 
and her people in the said World War, and from these to prepare and publish 
as speedily as possible an accurate and trustworthy illustrated History of 
North Carolina in the Great World War. | 

“Src. 4. The said history shall give a reliable account of the: 

(a) Operations of the United States Government in North Carolina 
during the war; 

(b) Operations of the North Carolina State Government in war times; 

(c) Operations of county and local government in war times; 

(d) War work of volunteer organizations; 

(e) Military, naval, and air service of North Carolina units and of 
individual North Carolina soldiers, sailors, and airmen; 

(7) Organization and services of the Home Defense; 

(g) A roster of North Carolina soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the war; 

(h) Services of North Carolinians in national affairs during the war; 

(i) Effects of the war on agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, 
finance, trade and commerce in North Carolina; 

(j) Social and welfare work among the soldiers and their dependents; 

(k) Contributions of schools and churches to the war and the effect of 
war on education and religion. 

(1) Such other phases of the war as may be necessary to set forth the 
contributions of the State and her people to this momentous 
event in the world’s history. 

“Spo, 5. That after the preparation of such history the said Historical 
Commission shall have the same published and paid for as other State print- 
ing, and said Historical Commission shall offer such history for sale at as 
near the cost of publication as possible: Provided, that one copy of such 
history shall be furnished free to each public school library in North Carolina 


N. ©. Histortcan Commission. 15 


which shall apply for the same: Provided also, that said Historical Commis- 
sion may exchange copies of said history for copies of other similar histories 
of the war; and Provided further, that all receipts from the sale of said 
history shall be covered into the State Treasury.” 


Acting under authority of this law, the Historical Commission chose 
Mr. Robert B. House Collector of World War Records, and Mr. House 
entered upon his work June 19, 1919. In the discharge of his duties he 
has shown such a clear grasp of the problems involved that he has been 
able to organize the work on a permanent and effective basis, and he has 
pursued it with an aggressive and yet tactful efficiency which has pro- 
duced rather remarkable results. His report submitted below reveals that 
he has procured a collection of war records, official and personal, number- 
ing more than 100,000 pieces and covering almost every phase of the 
subject which concerns North Carolina. 

Although we must expect war records to come in more slowly from 
now on, yet we must recognize that the field has not yet been covered 
nor the sources of supply anything like exhausted, and Mr. House should 
be given the requisite stenographic and clerical help that will enable him 
to push his work as vigorously as its importance deserves. 

His report, which follows, merits your careful consideration. 


Report oF THE CoLLectTor or Wor~tp War Recorps 


Raleigh, N. C., December 1, 1920. 
Mr. R. D. W. Connor, Secretary. 


Sr :—I take pleasure in submitting my report of activities as collector 
of World War Records for the North Carolina Historical Commission 
from June 19, 1919, through November 30, 1920. 

I was employed under the general provisions of chapter 144, Public 
Laws of 1919, which enjoined upon me the collection of data concerning 
North Carolina in the World War and the preparation therefrom of 
a reliable, illustrated history. My first efforts, of course, have been 
directed to collecting as fully as possible all available data. 

On taking up my duties I found that the Historical Committee of the 
State Council of Defense, through a system of volunteer collecting in 
various counties of the State, and Col. F. A. Olds, Collector of the Hall 
of History, had already brought together a considerable amount of 
material. My work, therefore, has been largely to systematize and to 
expand the work as I found it already in progress. 

The obvious duties of my office required me to collect from the 
national archives, the State departments of North Carolina, the county 
organizations, and individual citizens, innumerable classifications of 
data. My means for doing this consisted of myself and the part-time 


16 EigutuH Brenniat Report. 


assistance of one stenographer. Therefore, completion of this task within 
a short time was a physical impossibility. This fact was recognized 
by the Historical Commission when I began work, and my plan of action, 
with their approval, was to do as fully as possible what I could with the 
means at my disposal. The following analysis of my operations will 
indicate the trend that the work has taken during the past two years 
and the results accomplished. 


OFFICE ADMINISTRATION 


So great was the popular interest of North Carolinians in the war as 
a subject of information and study, that immediately upon its becoming 
known that a Department of War Records was in operation, I began to 
_ receive letters requesting information, offering help, ete., so that at once 
a voluminous correspondence was instituted, which together with my 
routine letters began to total up a large amount of office administration. 

Letter-writing and copying manuscripts, together with filing docu- 
ments received, arranging them in rough, systematic order and cata- 
loguing them, likewise roughly, began to take up a large part of my time, 
threatening to eclipse the other activities I had instituted. In this con- 
nection I have been constantly handicapped by lack of sufficient steno- 
graphic help. However, this side of my work has been satisfactory 
within its limitations. 


SURVEY OF RECORD-PRODUCING AGENCIES 


One of my first tasks was to survey all possible sources of informa- 
tion concerning North Carolina in the World War to be found in the 
national archives, in the State departments, and among the various 
county organizations and individuals of North Carolina. In surveying 
national sources of information, I found that various other states of 
the Union were engaged in a similar task. Consequently, in September, 
1919, representatives from the several states met in Washington to 
organize what became the National Association of State War History 
Organizations. This was a codperative enterprise financed by a mem- 
bership fee of $200, paid by each member state organization. The North 
Carolina Historical Commission became a member of this association. 
As a result we have in hand a complete survey of materials that will be 
necessary to our purpose from the national archives, and have a con- 
siderable number of digests of this material. 

In the State departments I found that the correspondence and pub- 
lished documents of the years 1917-1920 would be essential, but these 
documents being still of administrative value in the respective offices 
could not be released for some time to come. I, therefore, impressed 


— ee 


N. C. Histrorican Commission. 17 


upon each office the necessity of preserving its records for these years 
entirely, until such time as they could be released for our archives. In 
this way I was able to insure the eventual accession of all records in the 
State departments. These records have begun to come to us in such 
manner as I have indicated in my catalogue of accessions. 

The records produced by county organizations and individuals in 
North Carolina were found to be in a chaotic condition. In many cases 
officials of various war-work organizations had destroyed their records 
immediately upon the signing of the armistice, under the impression 
that these records were of no further value. In many cases, moreover, 
they had kept no complete records during the course of the war. I, 
therefore, took steps to advise these organizations of the value of their 
reports to any adequate history of the war. Moreover, while in a 
majority of the counties of the State volunteer collectors had agreed to 
bring together material for the Historical Committee and the Council 
of Defense, they had in reality done little systematic work. By letters 
and personal visits, however, I prevailed on most of these volunteer col- 
lectors to continue their connection with the Historical Commission, 
and I also effected organizations of volunteer collectors to a considerable 
extent in counties hitherto having no collectors. In addition, I secured 
in sixty-two counties of the State representatives of the colored race to 
take care of data pertaining to negroes in the war. Following up this 
effort to organize volunteer collectors, I held in Raleigh, February 4, 
1920, a conference of volunteer war records collectors in order to empha- 
size what documents ought to be preserved and methods of preserving 
them. This conference has produced definite results, which will appear 
in my catalogue below. I might note here, however, that the most nota- 
ble results in county collection of war records have been achieved in 
Orange, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Cumberland, Halifax, Hyde, Wilkes, 
and Warren counties, where the collectors in each case have checked 
over practically all available sources of information and have either 
secured complete records of each war organization and individual in 
the county or have determined that such records do not exist in par- 
ticular cases. 

PUBLICITY 

In the early part of my work I prepared three bulletins outlining 
fully the nature of war records, why they should be preserved, and how 
the people of the State could help preserve them. These I have dis- 
tributed widely and from them have also received beneficial results. In 
addition, I have kept the press of the State supplied with newspaper 
articles concerning my activities, points of interest about the war, and 
the progress of the collection of war records. The results from these 
efforts have also been concrete and beneficial. 


18 EienutH BienniaL Report. 


PREPARATION OF WAR ROSTER 


I also prepared a roster of all individuals who held official positions 
in any war-work organization in North Carolina. With this roster as 
a guide, I began a systematic correspondence with those individuals in 
an effort to secure such records as were in their possession. This effort 
was attended with varying success, but it produced concrete results that 
will be shown by my catalogue. I am still pursuing this canvass of 
individuals. 

FIELD WORK 


It was obviously necessary that I go out into the State to acquaint 
myself with individuals possessing war records and to secure such things 
as were available, and in the course of my work I have made a number 
of visits to counties, to the meetings of the National Association of 
State War History Organizations, to the several reunions of the Old 
Hickory and the Wild Cat divisions and to community celebrations, in 
an effort to push the collection of war records. I found, in general, that 
while such traveling always produced concrete results, it was better to 
await the occurence of such events as Armistice Day celebrations, official 
meetings, etc., than to go at random on a general canvass of the State, 
since so much time, energy and money were required.in other depart- 
ments essential to my work. 


RESEARCH 


Numerous individuals and organizations in the State were already 
studying the progress of the war in North Carolina and in many eases 
preparing historical sketches of certain branches of war history. These 
individuals have invariably come to me for information in their par- 
ticular line of work. I have endeavored to answer all inquiries as 
promptly as possible so that the Collector of War Records exists in the 
minds of the people of the State as a bureau of information about the 
war in general, 


It is impossible to outline in detail the actual results accomplished in 
furthering the preservation of North Carolina’s war records by the 
efforts described above. Organizations have been effected in various 
localities of the State which are still in operation and the final results of 
whose efforts it is impossible to determine as yet. The fact that North 
Carolina has a splendid war record that should be preserved in a defi- 
nite body of documentary material is growing more and more clearly in 
the consciousness of the people. In a word, it has paid to advertise this 
work to the State, so that each day now I find it easier to obtain war 
records, because of the growing idea of the importance of the work in 
the State at large. 


N. C. Historrcat Commission. 19 


However, the final test of the work is a survey of such documents as 
have been secured, and, therefore, I give in the following paragraphs 
a digest of war records received, an estimate of the number of pieces in 
each particular collection, and some indication of its value to the war 
history of North Carolina. 


ACCESSIONS 
American Legion 


Program of American Legion convention in Raleigh; List of members in 
Cumberland County; Notice of meeting at Enfield, 1919-1920. 


Citations 


War Department Orders, containing citations of North Carolina men. 


Miscellaneous material concerning the following: Robert L. Blackwell, 
Harl M. Thompson, Major W. A. Graham, Andrew Scroggs Nelson, Capt. I. R. 
Williams, James H. Baugham, Lieut. W. O. Smith, Lieut. James A. Higgs, 
Coit L. Josey, Capt. John R. Jones, Major Paul C. Paschal, Lieut. Robert B. 
Taylor, James McConnell, Joseph H. Laughlin, Hmory L. Butler, Henry H. 
Hall, Lieut. J. H. Johnston, J. Graham Ramsey, S. J. Erwin, Jr., Lieut. 
Robert B. Anderson. 

Specimen of the diploma given by the French Government to all soldiers 
of the World War who lost their. lives. 

About 500 pieces, 1917-1920. 


County Collections 


The following individual county collections, totaling in all about 5,000 
pieces, 1917-1920: 


Wilson County—J. Dempsey Bullock, Collector. 

Surry County—Miss Isabel Graves, Collector. 

Davidson County—J. R. McCrary, Collector. 

Hoke County—John A. Currie, Collector. 

Cumberland County—Mrs. John Huske Anderson, Collector. 
Gates County—A. P. Godwin, Collector. 

Halifax County—Mrs. E. L. Whitehead, Collector. 

Lenoir County—H. Galt Braxton, Collector. 

Guilford County—W. C. Jackson, Collector. 

Hyde County—Mrs. L. D. Swindell, Collector. 

Wilkes County—F.. H. Hendren, Collector. 

Warren County—W. Brodie Jones, Collector. 

Pasquotank County—Miss Catherine Albertson, Collector. 


County Councils of Defense 
New Hanover County: Correspondence; historical sketch; clippings from 
the Morning Star. 5,000 pieces, 1917-1919. 
Avery County: Historical sketch; correspondence. 500 pieces, 1917-1919. 


20 EientuH Biennrat Report. 


Wilson County: Three volumes of clippings, photographs, etc. 
Material from the following counties: Alamance, Guilford, Warren, Rock- 
ingham, Lenoir, Nash, Anson, Lincoln, Person, Polk, Chowan. 1917-1920. 


Economic Data 


3,000 pieces, 1917-1920, collected from various sources. 


Education 


About 3,000 pieces, 1917-1920, miscellaneous data, collected by the Collector 
of War Records. 


Histories of North Carolina Units 


Histories of North Carolina units have been secured as follows: 

118th Infantry, 105th Engineers, 120th Infantry, 147th Field Artillery, 
Fifth Division, 316th Field Artillery, 321st Infantry, 55th Field Artillery 
Brigade, 306th Engineers, 113th Field Artillery. 

Miscellaneous data on 113th Field Artillery, 81st, 30th, 3d, 26th, and 42d 
divisions; papers, pictures and notes of Old Hickory Reunion, 1919; con- 
gratulatory orders and papers concerning the 30th Division; operations map 
of 30th Division; record of service of 147th Field Artillery in France; letter 
and report on 9th Battalion, 156th Depot Brigade, letter relating to history of 
115th Machine Gun Battalion; roster of 113th Field Artillery; names of men 
from North Carolina now with First Division; newspaper, program and 
other souvenirs of Wildcat Reunion, 1920; address of Col. Harry R. Lee to 
81st Division; newspaper, souvenirs and other material concerning Old 
Hickory Reunion, 1920. 1917-1919. 


Individual Records—Army 


Data consisting of letters, biographies, sketches, newspaper clippings, 
pamphlets, covering roughly, 1860-1920, have been secured, concerning 
the following North Carolina soldiers: 


Brigadier-General Campbell King, Major Frank HE. Emery, Jr.; Lieut. 
Robert C. Brantley, Capt. John R. Jones, Lieut.-Col. Hugh H. Broadhurst, 
Paul Ayers Rockwell, Edgar W. Halyburton, Col. Marion S. Battle, Col. Clar- 
ence P. Sherrill, Luther Clarence McKinley Enlow, Col. Gordon Johnston, 
Lawrence B. Loughran, Charles McKee Newcomb, Robert Timberlake New- 
combe, Col. Paul C. Hutton, Robert C. Williamston, C. D. House, Everett 
Edward Briggs, Jeoffrey Franklin Stanback, West Vick, Brigadier-General 
Henry W. Butner, Col. John W. Gulick, Major A. B. Deans, Jr., Walter E. Ray, 
Jesse Staton, Peter Spruill, Francis Marion French, J. E. Gregory, William 
S. Williams, Charlie M. Jones, Robert N. Beckwith, Col. John Van B. Metts, 
Lieut. Frederick Fagg Malloy, John B. Watson, R. B. House, Thomas Leete, 
Jimson Robinson, Lacy Edgar Barkley, James Redding Rives, Jr., Hubert 
Mahaney Whitaker, G. S. Boyd, David Smith, Major-General George W. Read, 
Brig.Gen. Charles J. Bailey, Charles L. Coggin, Col. Holmes B. Springs, 
Brig-Gen. E. M. Lewis, Sergt. John A. L. Moore, I. G. Wilson, Corp. C. C. 
Noble, Col. C. N. Barth; soldiers from Fayetteville, Spring Hope, Surry 
County, Wake County, Halifax County. Number of pieces estimated at 5,000. 


N. C. Hisroricat Commission. 21 


Individual Records—Navy 


Data consisting of letters, biographs, sketches, newspaper clippings, pamph- 
lets, covering roughly 1860-1920, concerning the following North Carolina 
sailors: 

Rear Admiral Victor Blue, Lieut-Commander John F. Green, Lieut-Com- 
mander Walter Doyle Sharpe, Commander Rufus Zenas Johnstone, Lieut.- 
Commander W. C. Owen, Lieut..Commander J. R. Norfleet, Lieut.-Commander 
Paul Hendren, D. C. Godwin, James Edward Stephenson, Capt. Lyman A. 
Cotten, William Hansell Bushall, Listen Newkirk, Capt. R. W. McNeely, 
Reuben O. Jones, Commander John J. London, Lieut.-Commander William 
T. T. Mallison. 2,000 pieces. 


Individual Records—Air Service 


Robert O. Lindsay Papers: About 50 pieces, 1917-1920, concerning the 
services of Lieut. Robert O. Lindsay, the only Ace from North Carolina. 

Kiffin Yates Rockwell Papers: About 3,000 pieces—letters, clippings, etc., 
covering roughly the dates 1892-1920, concerning Kiffin Yates Rockwell, an 
aviator with the French Escadrille, who gave his life in action in 1916. 
Donated by his mother, Dr. Loula Ayres Rockwell, and his brother, Paul 
Ayres Rockwell. 

James A. Higgs Papers: About 1,000 pieces, covering roughly the dates 
1890-1920. Story of his war experience, diary, personal correspondence, offi- 
cial correspondence, miscellaneous personal papers, official balloon notes, 
official photographs, balloon notes, etc. Lent by his sister, Miss Mattie Higgs. 

Miscellaneous data about Lieuts. William Palmer, Harmon Rorison, John 
C. Miller. 

About 10,000 pieces. 


Jewish War Records 


About 100 pieces, 1917-1920. Compiled by the Jewish War Record office, 
New York City. 


Iiberty Loan Campaign 


Papers of Mrs. R. M. Latham, State Chairman Woman’s Liberty Loan Com- 
mittee: about 5,000 pieces of correspondence, covering dates of 1917-1920. 
Miscellaneous papers covering same dates: about 100 pieces. 


Local Exemption Boards 


Local Board reports, about 2,000 pieces, containing the lists of drafted men 
from each county, obtained by Col. F. A. Olds. 

Miscellaneous material as follows: Photographs; list of inducted men and 
letters of the Hyde County Board; Account of the Carteret County Board; 
Information concerning the draft in Hyde, Caldwell, Stokes, Chowan, Gra- 
ham and Franklin counties; History of the Draft Board for Beaufort and 
Halifax counties. 

About 2,000 pieces, 1917-1920. 


22 Eieutu Brenniat Report. 


Letters Pertaining to the War 


Letters from the files of Col. F. A. Olds, covering roughly the dates 1917- 
1920. 50 pieces. 

Miscellaneous letters from the following: 

Marcelle Brunet to Mrs. Woollcott; Henriette, Duchess of Vendome, Prin- 
cess of Belgium, to Tryon Chapter A. R. C.; Kiffin Rockwell to Mrs. John Jay 
Chapman; Ambassador Jusserand to Hon. S. P. McConnell; J. Graham Ram- 
sey, James Menzies; Clara I. Cox; Mrs. K. R. Beckwith; L. S. M. Robinson, 
DeWitt Smith; Mrs. Eliza Potter Settle; Parents of Madelon Battle; Shirley 
N. White; John Y. Stokes; Lieut. Harry L. Brockmann; Mr. Charles C. Ben- 
son; and correspondence of General S. L. Faison and the War Department. 

Letter-book of Governor T. W. Bickett, about 1,000 pieces of essential cor- 
respondence relating to Governor Bickett’s administration. 

Executive Papers of Governor T. W. Bickett pertaining to the war, about 
10,000 pieces, 1917-1920. Filed chronologically under headings, as for ex- 
ample the following: Draft, Desertions, Food Administration, Fuel Adminis- 
tration, Rehabilitation, ete. 


Miscellaneous Data 


In addition to collections of materials which have been outlined in this 
report, there has been brought together about 5,000 individual items bearing 
on North Carolina in the World War. These are as yet entirely unread and 
unarranged, and therefore cannot be described in detail. 


Munitions and Shipbuilding 
Records of Andrew B. Baggerly, Navy Yard, 1917-1920. 


Negroes in the War 


About 20 pieces, 1917-1920, from W. H. Quick, and J. Dempsey Bullock, 
collectors. 


Photographs 


About 250 photographs collected by Col. Fred A. Olds and noted in his 
report. 

Additional photographs as follows: Entertainment given by Raleigh Y. M. 
C. A.; Panorama of Camp Lee, Va.; Collection lent by News and Observer; 
Lieut-Commander John F. Green; Col. Albert L. Cox; Wake Forest students 
at Plattsburg in 1918; Lieut. J. J. Sykes; Brig-Gen. S. T. Ansell; Col. Joseph 
Hyde Pratt; Capt. Thomas Polk Thompson; John H. Howell; Lieut. William 
T. Gregory; Lieut. Samuel F. Telfair; Rufus Zenas Johnston; 90 prints of 
official photographs illustrating the 30th Division; Panorama of 119th Infan- 
try at Camp Sevier; Brig.-Gen. Campbell King; Col. Marion S. Battle; Lieut.- 
Col. Hugh H. Broadhurst; Foreign Legion; Edgar M. Halyburton; Otis B. 
Baggerly; Col. Clarence P. Sherrill; Camp Bragg and Fayetteville; Lieut.-Col. 
W. G. Murchison; Col. S. W. Minor; 9th Battalion, 156th Depot Brigade; 
Major P. C. Paschal; Shirley N. White; Admiral Archibald Henderson Scales; 
Lieut..Commander D. C. Godwin; Otis V. Baggerly; Capt. Lyman A. Cotten; 
James Edward Stephenson; Peter Spruill; Collection taken by Capt. Bagley, 
321st Infantry; Capt. R. W. McNeely; Tablet erected to Lieut. Robert H. 


N. C. Hisroricat Commission. 23 


Anderson; Commander John J. London; German celebration at Hot Springs; 
German soldiers; Chairmen of County Councils of Defense; Wilkes County 
Council of Defense; Capt. William W. Palmer; Capt. John C. Ray; Robert H. 
Salisbury; Miss Ella Fly; G. S. Boyd; Henry Brooks Webb; Corporal Charles 
Nathaniel Webb; Nathaniel Dunn Pierson; Ernest Hyman; Lieut.Col. John 
W. Gulick; David Smith; Wallace Riddick; Company A, 306th Engineers; 
Brig.Gen. Charles J. Bailey; Col. Holmes B. S. Springs; Brig-Gen. E. M. 
Lewis; Sergeant John A. L. Moore; I. C. Wilson; Corporal C. C. Noble; and 
miscellaneous photographs from Cumberland County, Halifax County, Pasquo- 
tank County, etc., 1917-1920. 
20 photographs concerning farming activities of North Carolina women. 


Red Cross 


Red Cross chapter histories as follows: Goldsboro, Gates, Fayetteville, 
Chowan County, Cleveland County, Chapel Hill, Camden County, Carthage, 
Wilkes County, Burke County, Halifax County, Durham County, Wilmington, 
Pitt County, Raleigh, Southport, Lee County, Duplin County, Hertford County, 
Granville County, Scotland County, Kings Mountain, Beaufort County, Bertie 
County, Reidsville, Salisbury, LeaksvilleSpray-Draper, Greene County, Ran- 
dolph County, Chatham County, Robersonville, Person County, North Curri- 
tuck County, Richlands, Watauga County, Alleghany, Vance County, Hickory, 
Marion, Weldon, Gaston County, Anson County, Guilford County, Stanly 
County. 1917-1920. 

About 2,000 pieces. 

About 5,000 pieces of miscellaneous material, as follows: 

Sundry numbers of Red Cross Briefs; paper on North Carolina production; 
letters from soldiers to Raleigh Red Cross; report of activities of Durham 
County Chapter; record of shipments by Surry Chapter; material relating 
to Anson County; Kinston; Littleton, and Red Cross Roll Call in North 
Carolina; publicity items. 1917-1920. 


Religion 
One box of miscellaneous letters, 1917-1920, collected from various sources. 
500 pieces. 
Soldiers’ Diaries 


War dairies from the following: E. Warren McCullers, Charles H. Warren, 
Willard Newton, Col. Joseph Hyde Pratt (8 volumes manuscript), B. R. 
Lacy, Jr., covering roughly the dates 1917-1920. 


Soldiers’ Letters 


Robert Burton House Collection: About 500 letters, covering the dates 
1916-1920, a diary from May 15, 1917, through 1918, scrap book, clippings, etc. 

Miscellaneous letters as follows: Edgar W. McCullers; Joseph J. Mackay; 
Capt. John E. Ray. Letters from Fayetteville soldiers; miscellaneous letters 
written by soldiers to Mrs. William J. Andrews. 1917-1920. 


State Council of Defense 


The Joseph Hyde Pratt Collection: Two looseleaf volumes of about 500 
Pieces, covering dates May, 1917-Sept., 1917. 


94. EieutH Brrnniat Report. 


Official papers of the State Council of Defense, covering roughly dates 
1917-1920, about 10,000 pieces; from Dr. D. H. Hill, Chairman. 

Miscellaneous papers as follows: Incomplete set of minutes; some speci- 
mens of propaganda; Soldiers’ Business Aid Committee papers; Certificates 
issued to R. J. Morgan, Chairman Haywood County Council of Defense; 
First Annual Report; Correspondence and press material. About 2,000 pieces. 
1917-1920. 


U. S. Food Administration 


Complete record of the U. S. Food Administration in North Carolina, 10,000 
pieces, 1917-1920, turned over by Col. F. A. Olds from Henry A. Page, Food 
Administrator. 

Miscellaneous material, 500 pieces, 1917-1920. 

U.S. Fuel Adminstration 


Complete records of Fuel Administrator A. W. McAlister and R. N. Nor- 
fleet, 10,000 pieces, 1917-1920. 
Miscellaneous material, 500 pieces, 1917-1920. 
War Camp Community Service 


Reports of War Camp Community Service in Southport, Winston-Salem, 
Wilmington, Morehead City, Raleigh, Elizabeth City, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, 
Durham, Greensboro, Charlotte, Asheville, Hot Springs, Waynesville. 

History of War Camp Community Service in Southport and in Fayetteville. 

Poster, picture, several papers, and story of War Camp Community Service 
in Charlotte. 

About 500 pieces, 1917-1920. 

War Savings Stamps 


Miscellaneous material, from Colonel Olds. About 500 pieces, 1917-1920. 


Welfare Work 
About 500 pieces, 1917-1920, miscellaneous printed matter. 


War Work Fund 
Records concerning the War Work Fund, 1917-1920. 


Women in the War 
Miscellaneous data, about 2,000 pieces, 1971-1920, consisting of individual 
reports from various women’s organizations in North Carolina. 
Yi Co ag 


Material from Colonel Olds. Material concerning the Y. M. C. A. in the 
Army of Occupation. About 1,000 pieces, 1917-1920. 


Analysis of the foregoing catalogue shows, first, that some of our 
collections are already practically complete as, for example, records of 
the Food and Fuel Administrations, the State Council of Defense, and 


N. C. Hisrortcan ComMIssIon. 25 


the Governor’s office. These collections I purpose to arrange at once, 
systematically, so as to render them available for consultation. Also 
I purpose to study them with a view to publication. 

In the second place, some of our collections can be made complete 
within a reasonable length of time, as, for example, the service records of 
our soldiers, sailors and airmen, the histories of war work organiza- 
tions, and histories of counties, military units, etc. These I purpose to 
complete systematically as soon as possible, after which I shall arrange 
them for consultation and study also. 

In the third place, some of our collections will never be completed. 
These may be described as colorful, human-interest documents, such as 
letters, pictures, diaries, ete. But they are essentially of value to the 
historian even though incomplete, because of their typical, representa- 
tive nature. These I purpose to add to by every opportunity possible. 

Therefore, for the immediate future, my plans are to continue work- 
ing along my present lines of collecting and arranging documents in 
general. But results already achieved indicate that before the coming 
year is over the emphasis will shift to systematic arrangement, study 
and publication. 

Respectfully yours, 
R. B. Hovssz, 


Collector of World War Records. 


County Recorps 


Seventeen counties deposited with the Commission, during the period 
covered by this report, their noncurrent records, as follows: 


Burke County. (Erected in 1777 from Rowan.) 
County Court Papers (unbound), 1783-1842. 
Wills (unbound), 1794-1866. 
Marriage Bonds (unbound), 1794-1866. 

Bute County. (Hrected in 1764 from Granville.) * 
Land entries and oaths, 1778. 1 vol. 
County Court Minutes, 1767-1776. 1 vol. 
Wills and Inventories. 
Marriage Bonds. é 

Caswell County. (Erected in 1777 from Orange.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Chatham County. (Erected in 1770 from Orange.) 
County Court Minutes, 1811-1816. 1 vol. 

Columbus County. (Erected in 1808 from Bladen and Brunswick.) 
County Court Minutes, 1838-1846. 1 vol. 


*Abolished in 1778, and territory divided into Warren and Franklin. 


26 EieutsH Brenniat Report. 


Cumberland County. (Erected in 1754 from Bladen.) 
County Court Minutes, 1784-1860. 26 vols. 
County Court Road Docket, 1825-1855. 2 vols. 
Fayetteville papers, 1820-1871 (unbound). 
Marriage Bonds. 

Currituck County. (Erected in 1672 from Albemarle.) 
County Court Minutes, 1799-1830. 3 vols. 
Marriage Bonds. 

Duplin County. (Erected in 1749 from New Hanover.) 
County Court Minutes, 1784-1837. 6 vols. 
Marriage Bonds. 

Granville County. (Erected in 1746 from Edgecombe.) 
County Court Minutes, 1786-1820. 9 vols. 

Halifax County. (Erected in 1758 from Edgecombe.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Haywood County. (Erected in 1808 from Buncombe.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Johnston County. (Erected in 1746 from Craven.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Perquimans County. (Erected in 1672 from Albemarle.) 
Inventories and Sales, 1715-1815. 

Wills, 1711-1803. 
Marriage Bonds. 

Person County. (Erected 1791 from Caswell.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Rockingham County. (Erected in 1785 from Guilford.) 
County Court Minutes, 1786-18038. 3 vols. 
Marriage Bonds. 

Stokes County. (Erected in 1798 from Surry.) 
Marriage Bonds. 

Warren County. (Erected in 1778 from Bute.) 

County Court Minutes, 1783-1855. 8 vols. 

County Court Trial Docket, 1787-1805. 1 vol. 

Minutes of Courts Martial (militia), 1791-1815. 1 vol. 
Marriage Bonds. 

Wake County. (Erected in 1779 from Dobbs and Craven.) 
County Court Minutes, 1787-1788. 1 vol. 

Wills and Inventories, 1782-1808. 1 vol. 


Mars 


The following maps have been received: 


Map/ of the/ United States/, Exhibiting the/ Post-Roads, Situations, 
connexions, & distances of the Post Offices/ State Roads, counties, & Principal 
Rivers/ By Abraham Bradley Junr. 38x52. 1804. Insert: Map/ of North 
Carolina.—Presented by Miss Maude Waddell. 

Photostat copies of Collett’s map of North Carolina, 1768-1770, and of 
Jeffrey’s map of St. Christopher and Nevis, from the originals in the British 
Museum.—Presented by Prof. Charles M. Andrews of New Haven, Conn. 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission. 27 


NEWSPAPERS 


Tn the early part of the present year a systematic effort was begun to 
secure either original or photostat copies of all North Carolina news- 
papers prior to 1800 which could be located. The accomplishment of 
this undertaking has been made possible by the publication in the Pro- 
eeedings of the American Antiquarian Society of Mr. Clarence S. 
Brigham’s “Bibliography of American Newspapers.” An arrangement 
with the Massachusetts Historical Society has made it possible for us to 
procure positives of such prints at the cost of negatives. We send the 
negatives to them from which they furnish us the positives without 
charge, on condition that the negatives remain with them, they being 
permitted to furnish from them prints to any other historical society, 
commission, or library that may desire them. This agreement enables 
us to procure positives of our early newspapers at almost half the price 
they would otherwise cost us. 

To the courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, the British 
Public Records Office, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Library 
of Congress, the New York Historical Society, and the Louisiana State 
Museum, we are indebted for permission to have such prints made of 
early North Carolina newspapers as follows: 


From the American Antiquarian Society: 

Edenton Intelligencer, April 9, 1788. 

State Gazette of North Carolina. Forty-six issues of various dates 
from March 30, 1792, to February 20, 1799. 

North Carolina Chronicle; or Fayetteville Gazette. Six issues in 1790. 

Fayetteville Gazette. Ten issues in 1792. 

North Carolina Minerva, and Fayetteville Advertiser. Issues of No- 
vember 17, 1798, and November 26, 1799. 

North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). Two issues, October 18th, 1759; 
June 24, 1768. 

Wilmington Sentinel, and General Advertiser, June 18, 1788. 

Wilmington Chronicler, and North Carolina Weekly Advertiser. Octo- 
ber 22, 1795. 

Martin’s North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). August 15, 1787. 

North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). Three issues in 1790 and 1794. 


From the British Public Records Office: 
North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). Four issues from 1757 to 1775. 
North Carolina Gazette (Wilmington). Three issues in 1765 and 1776. 
Cape Fear Mercury. One issue in 1773 and three issues in 1775. 


From the Library Company of Philadelphia: 
State Gazette of North Carolina, October 4, 1787. 
North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). Twenty issues from October 
12, 1793, to July 16, 1796. 


28 Eicgutu Brenniat Report. 


From the New York Historical Society: 


North Carolina Gazette (New Bern). Seven issues in 1775. 
State Gazette of North Carolina, February 7, 1788. 


From the Library of Congress: 


Post-Angel, or Universal Entertainment (Edenton). November 12, 1800. 

Newbern Gazette. Seven issues of various dates from November 24, 
1798, to March 16, 1799. 

State Gazette of North Carolina, October 4, 1787. 

North Carolina Minerva, December 23, 1800. 

North Carolina Journal. Complete from January 4 to December 12, 
1796, except for the issues of January 11, February 29, May 9, June 
13, and July 26; of October 17, and December 12, we have only the 
second and third pages. 


From the Louisiana State Museum: 


Martin’s North Carolina Gazette. Issues of July 11 and December 19, 
1787. 


By purchase we procured the originals of the 
North Carolina Journal. Six issues of various date in 1794-1795. 


As a gift from Mrs. Henry A. London, we received 
The Chatham Record, 1878-1920. 42 vols. 


History or THE Kine’s BopyGuarD OF THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD 


In connection with the commemoration of the Tercentenary of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, Col. Sir Reginald Hennell, colonel in command of the 
King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard, the oldest military 
organization in the world, presented to the State of North Carolina 
through the Historical Commission, the last copy in his possession of 
his history of the Guard which was written by him at the command of 
the King. This copy Colonel Hennell had handsomely bound in the 
colors of the Guard, and inscribed to the State of North Carolina in 
commemoration of the fact that Sir Walter Raleigh, whose colonies 
settled on the shores of North Carolina, was formerly a captain in the 
Guard. 


PUBLICATIONS 


Since my last report the Commission has issued the following publi- 
cations: 

Bulletin No. 24. Seventh biennial report of the North Carolina Historical 
Commission, December 1, 1916-November 30, 1918. Paper. 17 pages. 

Bulletin No. 25. Proceedings of the State Literary and Historical Associa- 
tion of North Carolina for 1918; Addresses prepared for the Conference on 
Anglo-American Relations in commemoration of the Tercentenary of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, October 28-29, 1918. Paper. 146 pages. 


N. C. Historicat Commission. 29 


Bulletin No. 26. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Session of the State 
Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, November 20-21, 1919. 
Paper. 137 pages. 


North Carolina Manual for 1919. Compiled and edited by R. D. W. Connor. 
Cloth. 459 pages. 


Papers of Thomas Ruffin. Compiled and edited by J. G. de R. Hamilton. 
Vol. II. Cloth. 625 pages. 


Volumes IIT and IV of the Ruffin Papers are now in the press and 
their publication may be expected at an early date. 


Moravian ReEcorps 


One of the largest and most important unpublished collections of 
Manuscript material bearing on the history of North Carolina are the 
records of the Moravians in Wachovia, preserved in the Wachovia His- 
torical Society at Winston-Salem. These records are continuous from 
the beginning of the Wachovia settlement in 1752 to date. From 1752 
to 1857 they were kept in German, but since 1857 the English language 
has been used. They are in the form of church minutes, journals, 
diaries, and “Memorabilia” prepared by the pastors and read annually 
to the several congregations, and relate not merely to the affairs of the 
Moravians but to events of general interest throughout the colony and 
the continent. 


The Commission has been fortunate enough to make arrangements 
with Miss Adelaide L. Fries, archivist of the Wachovia Historical 
Society, to translate and edit these records for publication by the Com- 
mission. Miss Fries’ thorough knowledge of the history of Wachovia 
and her familiarity with these records make her especially competent 
for this difficult task; indeed, she is probably the only person living 
who is competent to doit. The first volume of the series, “The Records 
of the North Carolina Moravians, 1752-1771,” is ready for the press 
and will be sent to the printers as soon as other volumes now in their 
hands are out of the way. 


HISTORICAL MARKERS 


The General Assembly of 1919 reénacted the Act of 1917 which appro- 
priated $2,500 annually to be used by the Historical Commission to aid 
in commemorating by suitable markers events of interest in our history. 
No change was made in the conditions under which the fund can be used, 
which were explained in my last report. Conditions have not been 
favorable during the period covered by this report for raising money for 
such historical memorials and but little aid has been requested from this 


30 EientH Brenniat Report. 


fund, but we can, I feel sure, look for a revival of such activities in the 
near future. During this period we have aided in erecting the follow- 
ing markers: 


1. Henry Irwin Tablet. 
This is a tablet erected in the courthouse at Tarboro in memory of 
Henry Irwin, colonel of the 2d Regiment, North Carolina Continental 
Line. Erected by the Miles Harvey Chapter, D. A. R. 


2. Confederate Navy Yard. 
A tablet marking the site of the Confederate Navy Yard on the Cape 
- Fear River near Wilmington. Erected by the New Hanover County 
Historical Commission. 


3. Sugar Loaf Battlefield. 

This is a tablet marking the site of Sugar Loaf battlefield, about 
fourteen miles below Wilmington on the Cape Fear River, where was 
fought in 1725 the last battle between the whites and the Indians on 
the Cape Fear. Erected by the New Hanover County Historical 
Commission. 


4. Site of Fort Anderson. 
A tablet to mark the location of Fort Anderson on the Cape Fear 
River opposite Fort Fisher, which, with Fort Fisher, formed the de- 
fense of the city of Wilmington during the Civil War. Erected by the 
New Hanover County Historical Commission. 


5. Site of Charlestown. 
This tablet marks the site of Charlestown on the Cape Fear, founded 
in 1665 by Sir John Yeamans, and afterwards abandoned. Erected by 
the New Hanover County Historical Commission. 


6. Historical Sites in Wilmington. 
A series of tablets marking the sites of events of historic interest in 
the city of Wilmington. Erected by the New Hanover County His- 
torical Commission. 


7. Ramsgate Road Tablet. 
A tablet to mark the location of the old Ramsgate Road in Wake 
County, built in 1771 by Governor Tryon, when on his expedition 
against the Regulators. Hrected by the Bloomsbury Chapter, D. R. 


8. Ramseur Tablet. 

A tablet erected to mark the location of the Belle Grove House near 
Winchester, Va., where died, October 20, 1864, Major-General Stephen 
Dodson Ramseur, of a wound received at the battle of Cedar Creek, 
October 19, 1864. Hrected in conjunction with the North Carolina 
Division, U. D. C., and the North Carolina Division, U. C. V. 


9. Pettigrew Tablet. 

A tablet erected to mark the location of the Boyd House near Win- 
chester, Va., where died, July 17, 1863, Brigadier-General James John- 
ston Pettigrew, of wounds received at the battle of Falling Waters, 
July 14, 1863. Erected in conjunction with the North Carolina Di- 
vision, U. D. C. and U. C. V. 


N. ©. Histroricat Commission. 31 


The Ramseur and Pettigrew memorials are bronze tablets affixed to 
handsome granite columns, the columns being gifts to the Commission 
of the late Col. Peter H. Mayo of Richmond, Va. They were unveiled 
on September 16 and 17, 1920. In the exercises in connection with the 
unveiling of these memorials we received such cordial codperation and 
hospitality from the Confederate veterans, Daughters of the Confed- 
eracy, and other citizens of Winchester and vicinity, as made the occa- 
sion a notable one. 


HALL OF HISTORY 


I submit herewith the report of the Collector for the Hall of History, 
and desire to call your attention especially to the fine collection of World 
War relics and photographs which have been secured during the period 
covered by this report. Another particularly interesting feature of the 
report is the statement that during the past two years, 202 classes of 
school children, representing schools in thirty-two counties, have visited 
the Hall of History and heard lectures on the history of North Carolina 
as illustrated by the collections there exhibited. 


Report oF THE CoLiEctor For THE Hart or History 


Raleigh, N. C., December 1, 1920. 
To Mr. R. D. W. Connor, Secretary: 


I beg leave to submit herewith my report as Collector for the Hall of 
History for the biennium, December 1, 1918-November 30, 1920: 

During the period covered by this report, December 1, 1918-November 
30, 1920, the collections in the Hall of History have been greatly en- 
riched and enlarged. Many of the counties in the State have been 
visited in the search not only for relics but for documents, letters, 
record-books and any other material, which could be obtained. 

From many counties much original material was secured, including 
marriage-bonds, county court minutes, wills, inventories of estates and 
other documents. So many courthouses have been burned and such 
extreme carelessness shown in other cases that the loss of documents has 
been immense and irreparable. The stories of the various counties, cov- 
ering existing records now in them and those brought here from them, 
have been prepared and are on file for instant reference. 

When Mr. R. B. House took up his duties as collector of material 
relating to the World War there were turned over to him many thou- 
sands of documents and great numbers of photographs. The documents 
included the records of the draft in North Carolina; records of the food 
and fuel administrations; reports on war industries in the State, which 
had been made by me as the unpaid representative of the War De- 


32 EieutH BrenniaL REport. 


partment and the United States Shipping Board; posters issued by the 
United States and the State during the war; and many other reports, 
orders, maps, etc. This collection was begun as soon as the World War 
began, as some North Carolinians entered it as early as September, 
1914, and was continued to the end of the war. 

The additions to the collections in the Hall of History are set out 
below, in what may be termed historical periods, for the sake of 
convenience. 


CotontaL PERIop 


An engraved portrait of Martin Howard, last Chief Justice under the 
Crown, presented by Mr. Alexander B. Andrews, of Raleigh; portrait 
and letter of Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg; portrait of Col. 
William Polk; 97 steel engravings of notable English men and women; 
tablecloth brought here by the Mendenhall family in 1682; commission 
of Joseph Montfort as Grand Master of Masons for America, signed by 
the Duke of Beaufort, Grand Master of England, this being deposited 
by the Grand Lodge of North Carolina; engraving of Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh, as Captain of the Archers of the King’s Body Guard of the Yeo- 
men of the Guard, 1592, presented by Col. Sir Reginald Hennell, the 
present commanding officer of the Guard. 


RevoLuTionary PERIOD 


Watch worn by Capt. John McDowell at the battle of Cowpens; 
picture of a North Carolina soldier, by Howard Pyle; bullets and glass- 
ware from the battlefield of Ramseur’s Mill; clock of Zebulon Baird, the 
grandfather of Gov. Z. B. Vance, presented by the teachers’ association 
of Transylvania County; map of New Bern; many Indian relies; medal 
struck in honor of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; and watch worn by 
Sarah Marcy, lent by Mrs. Jonathan Worth Jackson, in memory of Mr. 
Jonathan Worth Jackson. 


-Frprrat Prriop 


Chair of the old House of Commons, saved when the first State capitol 
at Raleigh was burned in 1831; bronze medal given by Congress to 
Cyrus Field for the first Atlantic cable; medal given by the people of the 
United States to Henry Clay. 


Crvizt War Periop 


Sword and sash of Capt. Francis Nash Waddell; flags of the 11th 
Regiment, North Carolina State Troops, presented by Capt. Edward R. 
Outlaw of Elizabeth City and the children of Col. W. F. Martin; flag of 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission. 33 


the 16th Regiment, North Carolina State Troops, presented by Emanuel 
Rudasill of Sherman, Texas; sword and spurs of Col. Francis M. Parker 
of the 30th Regiment, North Carolina State Troops; shell from the 
battlefield of South West Creek, near Kinston; photograph of Gen. 
Junius Daniel; bust in marble of Governor John W. Ellis, transferred 
from the Executive Mansion; photographs of Gen. William MacRae 
and Capt. James Iredell Metts of Wilmington, presented by Cape Fear 
Chapter, U. D. C., Wilmington. 


Orr Portraits 


Gen. William Ruffin Cox, C. S. A., painted by Martha M. Andrews, 
presented by Mrs. Kate Cabell Cox, of Richmond, Va.; Dr. Stephen B. 
Weeks, painted by Paul Emil Menzel, presented by Willie P. Mangum, 
Weeks, Washington, D. C. 


Prrtiop Since tHE Civit War 


Group portrait of William A. Graham and his seven sons; the original 
of the famous telegram sent by William R. Cox, Chairman of the State 
Democratic Executive Committee, to W. Foster French, Democratic 
Chairman of Robeson County, during the election of delegates to the 
Constitutional Convention of 1875, reading: “As you love your State 
hold Robeson,” presented by Mr. D. D. French; photographs of all the 
members of the State Constitutional Convention of 1875; photograph 
of Dr. Bartholomew W. Durham, for whom Durham County was named; 
the Supreme Court on the hundredth anniversary of its establishment ; 
photograph of Lieut. William E. Shipp, U.S. A., killed in the War with 
Spain; part of the Wright brothers’ airplane, which made the first suc- 
cessful flight, at Kitty Hawk, Dare County, N. C., May 8, 1908, and the 
first telegram announcing that flight. 


Tur Woritp War 


The flags of all the North Carolina regiments in the United States 
service, these being the 105th Engineers, 115th Field Artillery, 115th 
Machine Gun Battalion, 119th and 120th Infantry, all of the 30th or 
“Qld Hickory” Division; 316th and 317th Field Artillery, 321st and 
322d Infantry, all of the 81st or “Wild Cat” Division, with the battle 
ribbons and also silver bands for the staffs; the headquarters flag of 
Gen. Samuel L. Faison, commanding the 60th Brigade, 30th Division, 
presented to him by the North Carolina Chapter of the Sons of the 
American Revolution; flag of Base Hospital Unit No. 65, presented by 
the surgeons and nurses composing it. 


34 EieutH Brenniat Report. 


Two cannon and an anti-aircraft gun from the German ship Crown 
Princess Louise, from the Navy Department; German anti-tank rifle 
and automatic fifty-shot pistol, presented by Col. S. W. Minor, 120th 
Infantry; German machine gun, captured and presented by the 118th 
Field Artillery; number of relics of service in France and Belgium, 
presented for the 113th Field Artillery by Col. Albert L. Cox, including 
the last shells fired by each of the six batteries of that regiment, the 
moment before the armistice began, November 11, 1918; testament 
struck by German shrapnel, which saved the life of private Curtis Ben- 
ton of the 113th Field Artillery; imperial German telephone captured 
by that regiment, presented by Maj. A. L. Bulwinkle. 

The collection of the photographs is large and varied. Sets were 
made of Red Cross work at Raleigh and the reception of the 113th Field 
Artillery here on its return from France. There are nine views of 
Raleigh from an airplane; many of the shipyards at Wilmington, New 
Bern and Morehead City; the hospital at Oteen and Kenilworth; the 
naval aviation station at Morehead City and of all the regiments from 
North Carolina above referred to in connection with their flags; together 
with pictures of officers and men of these and other commands. 

The autograph photographs include those of President Wilson, Mar- 
shall Foch, Field Marshal Haig, who commanded the army of which 
the 30th Division was an important part; King Albert of Belgium, 
General Pershing, General McIver, General Lewis, General Faison, 
and General Campbell, all North Carolinians; Colonel Minor, Col- 
onel Metts, Colonel Pratt, Colonel Wooten of the First U. S. Engineers, 
the first American force to enter England ; Lady Madelon Battle Hancock, 
formerly of Asheville, who was at the Front in the British Red Cross 
Service in France and Belgium from August 10, 1914, until the armis- 
tice, who received twelve decorations from Great Britain, Belgium and 
France, and is widely known as “Glory” Hancock; Robert Lester Black- 
well, 119th Infantry, the only North Carolinian ever awarded the Con- 
gressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest military decoration; John 
E. Ray, 119th Infantry, who received the Victoria Cross. 

There are many other relics from the battlefields of France and Bel- 
gium; twenty-five commemorative medals struck by France and lent by 
Col. Albert L. Cox; thirty-one military medals of the various counties, 
lent by Lt. E. F. Wilson; part of the airplane in which Kiffin Rockwell 
made his last flight, he being the first North Carolinian killed in the war. 

There are the uniforms of Kiffin Rockwell with three French decora- 
tions, those of the Legion of Honor, Medaille Militaire and Croix de 
Guerre; of James McConnell and James H. Baugham, also of the Esca- 
drille LaFayette, decorated with the Medal Militaire and the Croix de 
Guerre; John E. Ray, of the 119th Infantry, decorated with the Victoria 


N. C. Histrortcat Commission. 35 


Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross; Robert R. Bridgers, of the 
British ambulance service, decorated with the honor medal of that 
service. 


Sprecray Visits, Exursrrs anp Lectures 


During the period the battlefields of Guilford Courthouse, King’s 
Mountain, Ramseur’s Mill, Moore’s Creek, Alamance and Bentonville 
were visited. At the battlefield of South West Creek, near Kinston, an 
address was made and appropriate relics exhibited. The Confederate 
reunion at Fayetteville was attended. Memorial Day addresses were 
made at Hlizabeth City and Henderson. 

Nearly 300 college and school addresses were made, in almost all the 
counties in the State. 

During the period 202 schools or classes in schools visited the Hall of 
History, representing thirty-two counties. 

A great deal of care has been given to the arrangement of relics 
chronologically in the Eastern Hall and when possible episodes in the 
State’s history have been set out. These include the First Settlement on 
Roanoke Island; the Lords Proprietors; the Stamp Act episode at Wil- 
mington, 1765; the Moravian Settlement; the Scotch settlements; the 
battle of the Alamance; the Revolutionary War from beginning to end; 
the naming of the counties, with portraits of persons for whom they 
were named; Colonial and Revolutionary notables; the North Carolina- 
born Presidents of the United States; the University and the earliest 
colleges; early transportation; the World War. 

The collections in the Western Hall were already arranged chrono- 
logically. The addition of so much fresh material has made it possible 
to effect both of these arrangements, which prove of great value to teach- 
ers and students, who compose a large part of the visitors, and also to the 
general public as well. Many lectures were delivered and students took 
notes easily because of this arrangement by periods. 

Acting in codperation with the Sulgrave Institution, at its request, 
the special attention of the public was called to the exhibits of objects 
relating to the First Settlement in North Carolina territory, 1584-1587. 
This material includes in the Eastern Hall engravings of Sir Walter 
Raleigh and his wife, born Elizabeth Throgmorton; his autograph, his 
home, Hayes-Barton ; the room in the Tower of London, in which he was 
so long a prisoner; John White’s narrative of the 1586 settlement on 
Roanoke Island, with map and engravings, 1590; letter from Joshua 
Lamb, whose father, of Boston, Mass., bought Bache Island, April 
ive 167 6, from Sir William Berkley of Virginia; map of Roanoke 
lend iade by Surveyor-General William Maude, 1710. In the West- 
ern Hall are the portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Raleigh, engraving 


36 Eigutn Brenniat Report. 


of Raleigh as Captain of the Archers of the King’s Body Guard, of the 
Yeomen of the Guard, 1592; Sir Walter and his half-brother, Sir Hum- 
phrey Gilbert; the inscription on the slab upon his grave in St. Mar- 
garet’s Church, Westminster Abbey; his knightly arms; another pic- 
ture of his home in Devonshire, Hayes-Barton; harquebus or hand-gun 
of that period; ballast from the vessels of White’s expedition; charcoal 
from the fire-pit in Fort Raleigh; oil paintings of Roanoke Island today, 
Jacques Busbee; engraving of King Edward VII, autographed by His 
Majesty and specially sent because of the first English settlement in what 
is now the territory of the United States, with letter from Viscount 
Bryce, setting out this fact. 
Respectfully submitted, 
Frep A. Ops, 
Collector for the Hall of History. 


LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE LIBRARY 


Below will be found the biennial report of the Legislative Reference 
Librarian. Considering the serious handicaps under which the library 
has been compelled to function during the bey two years, the report 
shows a record creditable to it. 

It should be borne in mind that the greater part of the library’s work 
is of an intangible character which cannot be adequately described in 
such a report as this. For instance, merely to say that 424 of the bills 
introduced into the General Assembly of 1919, and 150 of those intro- 
duced at the Special Session of 1920 were prepared for members in the 
Legislative Reference Library, does not give an adequate idea of the 
amount of labor required in investigations preliminary to the prepara- 
tion of the bills in the numerous conferences with the members for whom 
they were drawn, and in the many drafts which are frequently necessary 
before they are ready for introduction. The library has functioned 
effectively during the sessions, but its attention needs to be directed to 
a more systematic and thorough expansion and development of its 
activities between sessions. For this purpose the Librarian needs more 
stenographic and clerical assistance. 

The report of the Librarian follows: 


Report OF THE LEGISLATIVE REFRENCE LIBRARIAN 


Raleigh, N. C., December 1, 1920. 
Mr. R. D. W. Connor, Secretary: 

Following the death on December 18, 1918, of the Former Legislative 
Reference Librarian, Mr. W. S. Wilson, the services of Mr. R. H. Sykes, 
of Durham, were secured for the session of the General Assembly of 
1919. Mr. Sykes was assisted by Mr. W. T. Joyner. 


N. C. Histrortcat Commission. 37 


Assistance was thus furnished the members of the General Assembly 
in the preparation and drafting of bills, in a similar way to the services 


so efficiently rendered by the late Mr. Wilson to the General Assembly 
of 1917. 


Upon assuming my duties as Legislative Reference Librarian on 
August 1, 1919, I at once entered actively into the work of ascertaining 
the needs of State and county officials as to information desired touching 
legislation in this and other states and in promptly supplying this 
information. In order to acquaint myself with present and prospective 
problems of legislation I attended meetings of the State Bar Association, 
State Social Welfare Workers, the District Library Association and 
other important gatherings in the State. 


During November, 1920, after conferring with the Chairman and 
Secretary of the Commission, I went to Baltimore, Albany and Hartford 
and inspected the Legislative Reference Libraries at those places. 
I was shown every courtesy and had placed at my disposal all the 
facilities of those well-equipped reference libraries for making a study 
of the work done and the methods used. This trip was deferred until 
after the Special Session of the General Assembly in August, in order 
that I might be in better position to ascertain more clearly just what 
particular line of study and investigation it would be best to pursue. 


PUBLICATIONS 


Among the first of the activities of the Legislative Reference Library 
during the past year was the compilation and publication of a booklet 
of 63 pages entitled, “Directory of State and County Officials of North 
Carolina.” It contained a complete list of North Carolina’s congress- 
men, State officers, heads of the State departments, boards and com- 
missions, judicial officers, district tax supervisors, members of the Legis- 
lature and of county officials with their postoffice addresses. For each 
county it gave the name and address of the clerk of the court, sheriff, 
treasurer, register of deeds, coroner, surveyor, superintendent of health, 
superintendent of schools, superintendent of public welfare, county tax 
supervisor, county and highway commissioners. So great was the de- 
mand for this booklet that the supply of the first edition was quickly 
exhausted, necessitating the publication of a second revised edition. 
Copies were mailed to State and county officials besides being furnished 
to a large number of other people upon request. 

At the instance of the Southern Headquarters of the American Red 
Cross in Atlanta, during the spring and summer of 1920, I assembled 
and compiled material for the “Handbook of Information of the Social 
Resources of the State of North Carolina.” This publication was edited 


88 EientH Brenniat Report. 


and published under the direction of the Social Service Department of 
the American Red Cross, all the expense having been borne by that 
organization. By codperating with our various State institutions and 
agencies, the Legislative Reference Library acted as a clearing house, 
so to speak, for the several chapters in the book assigned to them. This 
handbook will furnish to social service workers comprehensive informa- 
tion as to the agencies that they may call upon to assist them in their 
work. The Red Cross in planning extension of its social work in North 
Carolina, felt that the handbook would be of invaluable aid. If a case 
should arise that requires a knowledge of the correctional institutions 
in the State, the location and all available information can be had by 
reference to the handbook. All child welfare laws, educational laws, 
and institutions, labor legislation, private and public institutions for the 
care of the feeble minded, health work, home demonstration, ete., are 
listed in the book with detailed information as to how to make the 
services of the institutions available. Copies of this handbook will be 
available on request to the Red Cross authorities. 

In September, 1920, I prepared and published a digest of the election 
laws relative to the requirements of registration and voting as especially 
affecting new voters. This was mailed to every newspaper in the State 
and was also sent to various women’s clubs and equal suffrage organiza- 
tions, it being of especial interest and value to the prospective women 
voters. 

Shortly after the election in November, 1920, I compiled and pub- 
lished a complete list of the members-elect of the Legislature of 1921, 
together with their postoffice addresses. 


Sprcrat Session oF 1920 


During the sixteen days’ Special Session of the Legislature in August, 
1920, about 150 bills were drafted in the Legislative Reference Library. 
In this work I was assisted by Maj. W. T. Joyner, who had rendered 
valuable assistance in a similar capacity to Mr. Sykes during the regular 
session of 1919. Information on a wide range of subjects was furnished 
both before and during the session to the legislators. Several weeks 
before the Special Session convened, I forwarded the following self- 
explanatory letter to each member: 


You have doubtless in mind some legislation of a public or private nature 
which you think should be enacted at the approaching session. 

If the Legislative Reference Library of the Historical Commission can be 
of any service to you in collecting information in this or other states on the 
subjects of proposed legislation, please advise us. It will be our pleasure 
to serve you in this or in any other matter. All that is asked is that suffi- 
cient time be given to collect the data required. For that reason, if you will 


it i 


N. C. Histortcat Commission. 39 


communicate with this office, making known your needs and desires, some 


time in advance of the session, the information will be assembled and fur- 
nished you in ample time. 

The Legislative Reference Library desires at all times to serve the people 
of North Carolina and especialy to offer its services to the members of the 
State Legislature. It is hoped that you will avail yourself of our assistance, 
both now and during the approaching session. 


In response to the above letter a number of.replies was received from 
which some idea was acquired of the character of legislation likely to be 
introduced and the information was secured accordingly. A similar 
letter has already been sent to the members-elect of the Senate and 
House of Representatives of the General Assembly of 1921. 

It has been my constant effort to make the Legislative Reference 
Library a place where the legislator and man of public affairs can study 
easily, intelligently and fully the trend of legislation at home and abroad 
and learn something of the reasons for and against the several move- 
ments. The benefits of the Library are being recognized more and more 
and there are many regrets that it was not established many years ago. 
Every effort has been made to make the library useful and satisfactory 
and as its advantages are understood and appreciated it is confidently 
predicted that it will steadily grow in importance and usefulness to the 
citizens of the State. 

Respectfully submitted, 
Henry M. Lonpon, 
Legislative Reference Librarian. 


SUMMARY 


The following summary, although clearly inadequate, may enable the 
members of the Commission to get a clearer idea of the scope of the 
Commission’s work as covered by this report. The report shows that 
during the past two years— 


1. Five official and five unofficial collections, containing 15,014 pieces, were 
arranged and filed for use; 

2. 8,666 manuscripts were scientifically treated for permanent preservation; 

3. 44 volumes of manuscripts were bound; 

4. Index cards to the names in eight volumes of Revolutionary Army 
Accounts were made, and cards to 20 volumes, numbering upwards of 75,000, 
were arranged alphabetically ; 

5. 3,281 manuscripts were added to collections already begun; 11 new col- 
lections were secured; 

6. The work of collecting the records of the World War was organized and 
more than 100,000 documents, covering 31 different subjects, were procured; 

7. Noncurrent official records, in 60 bound volumes and thousands of 
unbound papers, were brought in from 17 counties; 


40 EientsH Brenniat Report. 


8. Photostat copies of 169 issues of North Carolina newspapers of various 
dates from 1757 to 1800, were secured; 

9. Five publications were issued; 

10. Nine historical markers were erected; 

11. To collections in the Hall of History were added 178 different exhibits, 
embracing hundreds of portraits, photographs, battle flags, medals, uniforms, 
and other relics illustrating every period of our history; 

12. The Legislative Reference Library, in addition to its general activities, 
prepared 574 bills for members of the General Assembly, published one valu- 
able bulletin, and collected data covering a wide range for an important 
publication on the social service resources of the State. 


Although the above summary very inadequately covers the work of 
the Commission, most of which is incapable of being expressed statis- 
tically, it is not, I think, unimpressive. 

Respectfully submitted, 
R. D. W. Connor, 
Secretary. 
Rareieu, Norrn Caroriwa, December 1, 1920. 


PROCEEDINGS 


OF THE 


Twentieth and Twenty-First 
Annual Sessions 


OF THE 


State Literary and Historical Association 
of North Carolina 


RALEIGH 


DECEMBER 2-3, 1920 
DECEMBER 1-2, 1921 


Compiled by 
R. B. HOUSE, Secretary 


RALEIGH 
EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING COMPANY 
STaTE PRINTERS 
1922 


The North Carolina Historical Commis 


J. Bryan Grimes, Chairman, Raleigh 


oy tT 
D. H. Hut, Raleigh T. M. Prrrwan, Hender 
M. C. S. Nosiz, Chapel Hill Frank Woop, Edenton 


Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association 


1919-1920 
3 RILDEE Sa eer ies J. G. DER. Hamirton, Chapel Hill. 
Mire Vice-President .........ccncc08 Mrs. S. Westeay Battie, Asheville. 
Second Vice-President ................ T. T. Hicks, Henderson. 
matrd Vice-President .....00ceccssees Mrs. M. K. Myers, Washington. 
SEECEPCATY-CTGASUTECr «.. 2... cseseececas R. D. W. Connor, Raleigh. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
(With above named officers) 


W. K. Boyp, Durham. W. C. Smaru, Greensboro. 
Mrs. H. G. Cooper, Oxford. F. B. McDowett, Charlotte. 


MARSHALL DEL. HAaywoop, Raleigh. 


1920-1921 
(TLL Tl ee ae ees D. H. Hr, Raleigh. 
este VICeC-ETCSIOCNE 5... 2. ese nse ess Mrs. H. A. Lonpon, Pittsboro. 
Second Vice-President ............... C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 
Third Vice-President ............... Miss GERTRUDE WEILL, Goldsboro. 
Secretary-Treasurer ..........200005 R. B. House, Raleigh. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


(With above named officers) 


W. W. Pierson, Chapel Hill. : W. H. Grasson, Durham. 
A. B. AnpDREws, Raleigh. JOSEPHUS DANIELS, Raleigh. 
Bourton CRAIGE, Winston-Salem. R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. 


OFFICERS For 1921-1922 


(ELil LET P ste ged aoe eer W. K. Boyp, Durham. 

Mirat Vice-President ..........0c000: S. A. AsHE, Raleigh. 

Second Vice-President .............. Mrs. D. H. Bia, Greensboro. 
@iird) Vice-President. .....5...0.000- JoHN JorpaAn DovueLas, Wadesboro. 
Secretary-Treasurer .............02.: R. B. House, Raleigh. 


EXEOUTIVE COMMITTEE 


(With above named officers) 


W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hot, Raleigh. 
J. G. DER. Haminton, Chapel Hill. CLARENCE Por, Raleigh. 
C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 


PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 


“The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera- 
ture and history; 

“The encouragement of public and school libraries; 

“The establishment of an historical museum; 

“The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people; 

“The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina; 
and, 

“The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising 
generations.” 


ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES 
All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of 
the Association. ‘There are two classes of members: “Regular Members,” 
paying one dollar a year, and “Sustaining Members,” paying five dollars 
a year. 


RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 
(Organized October, 1900) 
Fiscal Paid-up 
Years Presidents Secretaries Membership 

1900-1901 WALTER CLARK .......---++--- Atzux. J. FELD... -22- =e 150 
1901-1902 Henry G. CONNOR.....-..---: Atex. J. PELLD. 3. neeerers 139 
1902-1903 W. L. POTEAT.......--+++-ee> GrorGh S. FRAPS.......-- 73 
1903-1904. C. ALPHONSO SMITH......-.---- CLARENCE POE ......-<e- 127 
1904-1905 Ropert W. WINSTON.......--.- CLARENCE POE ......-.--- 109 
1905-1906 Cuartes B. AYCOCK.....-.---- CLARENOE POE .......+<- 185 
1906-1907 W. D. PRUDEN......-+--++e+ee- CLARENOE POE ......+-++ 301 
1907-1908 RoserT BINGHAM......--+++-- CLARENCE POE>....~.-2< 273 
1908-1909 Junius DAVIS......-+--+eeees CLARENCE POE .....-.+<. 311 
1909-1910 Puatt D. WALKER......----+- CLARENCE POE .......--- 440 
1910-1911 Epwarp K. GRAHAM........-- CLARENCE POE .....--.+- 425 
1911-1912 R. D. W. CONNOR.........--- CLARENCE POE .......--; 479 
1912-19138 W. P. Few.......----eeeeees . D. W. CONNOR.....--- 476 
1913-1914 ARCHIBALD HENDERSON.....--- D. W. CONNOR......-- 435 
1914-1915 CLARENCE POE......----.++++:- D. W. ConNOR......-- 412 
1915-1916 Howarp E. RONDTHALER.....-- TL W. Connog.......- 501 
1916-1917 H. A. LONDON.......-++-+e+e> D. W. CONNOR.......- 521 
1917-1918 JAMES SPRUNT......----+++e> D. W. CoNNOR.......- 453 
1918-1919 JamES SPRUNT......-----+++- D. W. ConNOR......-- 377 
1919-1920 J. G. DER. HAMILTON.......- TD. W. COoNNOR.....--- 493 
1920-1921 D. H. HM..............++--+ B. HOUSE......-se00: 430 
1921-1922 W. K. Boyn..........-----00e: Bo LOUGH... ««- «<\< as 


THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 


THe CONDITIONS OF AWARD OFFICIALLY SET ForRTH BY MRS. PATTERSON 


To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical 
Association of North Carolina: 


As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among 
the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State 
an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a 
loving cup upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with 
your approval, and will be found to be just and practicable: 

1. The cup will be known as the “William Houston Patterson Memorial 
Cup.” 

2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten 
successive years, beginning with October, 1905. 

3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve 
months from September ist of the previous year to September ist of the 
year of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard 
to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and 
genius. The work must be published during the said twelve months, and no 
manuscript nor any unpublished writings will be considered. 

4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup, 
with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 
ist of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the 
Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual 
meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one 
winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it 
three times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so 
often, the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names 
of only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the finel award 
shall be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup. 

5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and 
Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of 
the occupants of the Chairs of English Literature at the University of North 
Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State 
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the Chairs of 
History at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College. 

6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their 
successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the Board, and 
these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter . 
time, as the Board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member 
to act must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines 
to serve, so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of 
each year. 

7. The publication of a member of the Board will be considered and passed 
upon in the same mevner as that of any other writer. 


Mrs. J. LINDSAY PATTERSON. 


SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION 


According to a resolution adopted at the 1908 session of the Literary and 
Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have 
his work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall com- 
municate with any member of the committee, either personally or through 
a representative. Books or other publications to be considered, together with 
any communications regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the 
Association and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for 
consideration. 


AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 


1905—JoHN CHARLES McNEILL, for poems later reprinted in book form as 
“Songs, Merry and Sad.” 

1906—Epwin Mrs, for “Life of Sidney Lanier.” 

1907—Kremp PLumMMeER Battie, for “History of the University of North 
Carolina.” 

1908—SaMvEL A’Court AsueE, for “History of North Carolina.” 

1909—CLARENCE Pos, for “A Southerner in Europe.” 

1910—R. D. W. Connor, for “Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Caro- 
lina History.” 

1911—ArcHIBALD HENbDERSON, for “George Bernard Shaw: His Life and 
Works.” 

1912—-CLARENCE Poe, for “Where Half the World is Waking Up.” 

1913—Horace KepHART, for “Our Southern Highlanders.” 

1914—-J. G. ppER. Hamurton, for “Reconstruction in North Carolina,” 

1915—W1114mM Louis Porsat, for “The New Peace.” 

1916—No award. 

1917—Mkrs. OLIveE TirForRD Darean, for “The Cycle’s Rim.” 

1918—No Award. 

1919—No Award. 

1920—Miss WINIFRED KIRKLAND, for “The New Death.” 

1921—No Award. 


WHAT THE ASSNCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE— 
SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT 


. Rural libraries. 

. “North Carolina Day” in the schools. 

. The North Carolina Historical Commission. 

. Vance statue in Statuary Hall. 

. Fire-proof State Library Building and Hall of Records. 

. Civil War battle-fields marked to show North Carolina’s record. 

. North Carolina’s war record defended and war claims vindicated. 
. Patterson Memorial Cup. 


COm1 DM OT Pm WD eH 


Contents 


PAGE 
Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Session.............. cee eee en ee ee ees 9 
Vitality in State History. By J. G. deR. Hamilton..................... iat 
What the World Wants of the United States. By John 
SPEH CELEB ASSCUL a clticrel c-s.ctovelarelsis evens: cureneie cvarcl olerecalerer ercl.ciesahchsyst oVobeyar ten am telals 20 
Patriotism, By John: Hrskimes. 5.0.00 se os oe ne elm om ole vin sialic) olelals) 1-160) 33 
William Richardson Davie. By H. M. Wagstaff...........ceseeeeeeeee 46 
An Highteenth Century Circuit Rider. By Frank Nash................ 58 
North Carolina Bibliography, 1919-1920. By Mary B. Palmer.......... 72 
Minutes of the Twenty-First Annual Session........... esse eee eeeeeee 72 
Confederate Ordnance Department. By D. H. Hill.................... 80 
An Ode. By Benjamin Sledd................05: PRIN cc cede See 92 
North Carolina Bibliography, 1920-1921. By Mary B. Palmer............ 94. 
The Historian and the Daily Press. By Gerald W. Johnson............ 97 
An Old Time North Carolina Election. By Louise Irby..... f oiehernera te eceiane 102 
Raleigh and Roanoke. By John Jordan Douglass...............+++..+. 112 
The Bread and Butter Aspect of North Carolina. By D. D. Carroll...... 119 


Members 1920-1921 ......ccc cece reece cece nc ceee cree nessrvenecseesceercs 124 


P< 2 apr 


Ges 


Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary 
and Historical Association of 
North Carolina 


Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Session 
Raleigh, December 2-3, 1920 


THURSDAY EVENING, Decemser 2np. 


The twentieth annual session of the State Literary and Historical 
Association of North Carolina was called to order in the auditorium 
of the Woman’s Club, Raleigh, N. C., Thursday evening, December 
2nd, 1920, at 8:00 o’clock, President J. G. deR. Hamilton in the 
chair. The session was opened with an invocation by Rev. W. W. 
Peele, Pastor of Edenton Street Methodist Church, Raleigh. Dr. 
Hamilton then read the president’s annual address. His subject was 
“Vitality in State History”. He was followed by Dr. John Spencer 
Bassett, Professor of History, Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 
whose subject was “What the World Wants of the United States”. 

At the conclusion of Dr. Bassett’s paper an informal reception 
was held for the members of the State Literary and Historical Asso- 
ciation, the North Carolina Folk Lore Society, and the North Car- 
olina Library Association, in the club building. 


FRIDAY MORNING, Decemser 3rp. 


The session was called to order in the Hall of the State Senate by 
President Hamilton, at 11 o’clock. The President presented Dr. 
H. M. Wagstaff of the University of North Carolina, who read a paper 
on, “Davie and Federalism.” Dr. Wagstaff was followed by Mr. Frank 
Nash, Assistant Attorney General of North Carolina, who read a paper 
entitled “An Eighteenth Century Cireuit Rider”. The president then 
presented Miss Mary B. Palmer, Secretary of the North Carolina 
Library Commission, who read “North Carolina Bibliography, 1919— 
1920”. 

At the conclusion of the exercises Dr. D. T. Smithwick of Louis- 
burg, presented the following resolution: 

To the members of the State Literary and Historical Association: 


I find no provision for the election of honorary members of our Asso- 
ciation, and thinking there are a number of people who are eligible and 


10 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


have gained distinction, maybe native North Carolinians in other states, 
whose connection with us would be of great value, I feel it would be 
wise for us at this meeting to make some provisions for election of honorary 
and life members. 


Therefore, make this motion, that the newly elected President and 
executive committee to be constituted a committee to make a report to 
our next meeting, with suitable provision for election of honorary mem- 
bers and the qualifications of such persons proposed for membership. 


D. T. SmirHwick, Louisburg, N. C. 


The resolution was passed. The president then appointed a nomi- 
nating committee with instructions to report their nominations of 
officers for the succeeding year at the evening meeting. This com- 
mittee was as follows: Mr. Frank Nash, Dr. C. C. Pearson, and Dr. 
J. M. McConnell. 


FRIDAY EVENING, Decemser 3nrp. 


President Hamilton called the meeting to order at 8:30 in the 
auditorium of Meredith College. He then introduced Dr. John Ers- 
kine, of Columbia University, who read an address entitled “Patriot- 
ism”. 

At the conclusion of Dr. Erskine’s paper the nominating committee 
reported the following nominations, which were unanimously carried: 
President, D. H. Hill, Raleigh; First Vice-President, Mrs. H. A. Lon- 
don, Pittsboro; Second Vice-President, C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest; 
Third Vice President, Miss Gertrude Weil, Goldsboro; Secretary Treas- 
urer, R. B. House, Raleigh. 


The Association then adjourned sine die. 


ADDRESSES 


Vitality in State History * 


By J. G. DER. HAMILTON 
President State Literary and Historical Association 


Almost from the time that conscious historical study began there 
has been argument as to the nature, value, and content of history 
which has not yet resulted in any agreement universally accepted. It 
still means to many people one or another of a large number of things, 
many of which it is not. Doubtless there are many persons present 
who can recall a time when the name denoted nothing save a dreary cata- 
logue of wars and battles, of dynasties and administrations, of isolated 
and perfectly insulated names and dates. To one who has never reached 
conceptions of history more advanced than this, my subject could have 
little or no meaning, for if that be the only content of history, truly 
there is no vitality in it. 

Of great interest and intensity has been the discussion on the sub- 
ject of the purpose and value of history. Opinions have ranged from 
that which has held it a purely cultural subject, full of scholarly 
detachment from the supposedly tainting touch of anything practical 
and useful, but replete from interest to many individuals properly 
educated up to it, all the way to the various views of a more utilitarian 
character. These aremany. Probably the most widespread is that the 
value of history lies in its service as a guide of conduct in matters of 
statecraft. Other claims made for it have been that it is calculated 
to discipline the memory, stimulate the imagination, and develop the 
judgment; to give training in the use of books; to furnish entertain- 
ment; to set up for conscious imitation ideals of conduct and of social 
service; to inculcate practical knowledge that can be turned to account 
in the daily concerns of life; to illuminate other studies; to enrich 
the humanity of the student, enlarge his vision, incline him to chari- 
table views of his neighbors, to give him a love of truth, to make him 
in general an intelligent well-disposed citizen of the world by making 
him a citizen of the ages. 

Another, widely prevalent for a time in the recent past, is that 
history teaches patriotism and should be written and taught with that 


* The author desires to express his sense of obligation for aid received in the preparation 
of this paper from the following works: James Harvey Robinson, ‘‘The New History;” 
Dewey, “Reconstruction in Philosophy ;” Frederic Harrison, ‘‘The Meaning of History;” 
and Henry Johnson, ‘‘Teaching of History.” 


12 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


end almost solely in view. Let me turn aside briefly from my subject 
to remark that history made to order for\ the teaching of patriotism is 
likely to bear as little relation to truth as its resulting effects 
bear to essential patriotism. An outraged world has, in the greatest war 
of history, repudiated and punished the most striking example of this 
sort of history teaching and this sort of patriotism. It remains for 
patriotic Americans to see that we do not err in the same direction. 


From the beginning of history writing to the point where a broad 
conception of values in history in relation to man’s environment and 
daily life appeared was a slow development. In the beginning history 
was held to be literature, art, poetry, which preserved the record of 
certain dramatic events, chiefly the heroic actions of kings, warriors, 
and statesmen. It sought to paint a picture, “to consecrate a noble 
past,” rather than to guide or furnish a key to the future. But in 
the eighteenth century a fresh point of view influenced historical study. 
The aim was no longer so much to paint a picture as it was to solve a 
problem—to explain the steps of national growth and prosperity or 
their reverse. Under the influence of this ideal every factor of 
national importance came to be regarded as valuable as a field for 
investigation and study, and thus was ushered in the day when history 
was generally held to be the story of people rather than of kings. 
The same period has seen likewise the steady increase of emphasis upon 
social factors other than political and religious, and the consequent 
rise of the group emphasized—in some cases overemphasized—the 
economic interpretation of the development of the human race. Here, 
too, received a mighty impulse that synthetic process of associating 
cause and effect which transformed history from mere annals into a 
connected whole. 

None of these views of history are as a whole true or yet untrue. 
In every point of view there are clear values, but in no one of them 
is the whole truth found. Take for instance the cultural aspect of 
historical study. The usual view of this fits with the most selfish 
view of education ever held, and has in its extreme form little truth, 
for knowledge that does not connect with life and its problems, that 
does not tend to give sounder notions of human and social interests, 
is meaningless. Bolingbroke thus describes it: 


“An application to any study that tends neither to make us better men 
and better citizens is at best but an ingenious sort of idleness 
and the knowledge that we acquire by it is a creditable kind of ignorance, 
nothing more. This creditable kind of ignorance is, in my opinion, the 
whole benefit which the generality of men, even the most learned, reap 


from the study of history.” 


Sratrr Lirerary AND HistoricaL ASssocIaTION 13 


Still, viewed from another light, it is in individual culture, training, 
and education that history yields its richest values. Bolingbroke saw 
this, and continued: 


“ “And yet, the study of history seems to me of all others the most proper 
to train us up to private and public virtues.” 


Nor, to go to the other extreme, does the utilitarian claim lack 
validity, except in so far as it claims too much. For in the last 
analysis, if history is to have values for the average man, and it is 
in relation to the average man or the mass of men that I discuss this 
subject, it must be practically useful and in a social sense it can be 
considered important only in so far as it meets that requirement. 


If the values of history be estimated rightly there is really little 
or no conflict between the cultural and utilitarian views. But 
what is the value of historical study and knowledge? Js an acquain- 
tance with the events, men, and ideas of the past of benefit to those in 
the world today? There is little difficulty in answering these questions. 
There is widespread agreement that the study of history does cultivate 
the mind, develop clear thinking, and give capacity to estimate the 
character of social movements and forces. It does fulfill almost every 
claim made for it. Knowledge of history lifts its possessor to a 
height from which, detached and aloof from the turmoil and uproar 
of his immediate environment, he can comprehend the nature of exist- 
ent institutions and conditions, and can trace the forces which operate in 
the life and progress of nations and of the world for good and evil. 
As few other acquirements it tends to the development of wholesome 
tolerance. It enables him to play a constructive, positive part in 
the formation and maintenance of effective public opinion, that compel- 
ling social and political force. But a widespread belief that from the 
study of past events sufficient knowledge may be acquired to meet the 
new problems which arise is true only as far as this: experience in the 
analysis of past movements and conditions develops a capacity to analyze 
similarly the movements and conditions of the present. In the words of 
Lecky : 


“The same method which furnishes a key to the past forms also an 
admirable discipline for the judgment of the present. He who has learnt 
to understand the true character and tendencies of ate. SAUSE NS ages 
is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own.’ 


Tn other words, the past does not furnish exact precedents for conduct 
in meeting similar situations, because similar situations rarely or 
never arise. History cannot accurately be said to repeat itself. But 


14 TWENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


historical study has value because through it we may gain such a know- 
ledge of the past that our conduct may be based upon, complete under- 
standing of existing conditions. 

As concrete examples of the value of historical study, take the cases 
of Jefferson and Madison. Both were profound students of history 
and both applied practically their knowledge in striking fashion and 
with such success that their names are held in honor and the world 
would have been a far poorer place had they been less informed on the 
subject. Yet the conditions which they faced had never had any par- 
allel in history. Their use of history lay in the capacity which it gave 
them to analyze situations and conditions accurately and, while adapting 
themselves to their environment, at the same time shape it for the 
future. <A not less significant example is that of a living American 
who has won the moral leadership of tha world and a glorious immor- 
tality. 

If there be here present any who doubt the value of historical 
knowledge, let them remember that out of history have come our daily 
life, our laws, our customs, our thought, our habits of mind, our beliefs, 
our moral sense, our ideas of right and wrong, our hopes and aspir- 
ations. Let them conceive, if it be humanly possible, of a world 
from which has been swept away every vestige of what may properly be 
called historical knowledge, from which was gone, not alone the know- 
ledge of the great events, but all records and the very memory of the 
great movements and achievements of the past in literature, art, science, 
and industry; of all customs, traditions, laws, and institutions; of 
religion; of all human hopes and human beliefs. Can imagination 
create a picture of greater and more hopeless confusion and woe? 

History, rightly employed, contains the alkahest of the present and 
of the future. 

So much for the values of history. What of its content? 

History has been defined as “All we know about everything man has 
ever done, or seen, or thought, or hoped, or felt.” There are many 
definitions still more inclusive, as, “History is the sum’ total of human 
activity,” or, “History in its broadest sense is everything that ever 
happened. It is the past itself, whatever that is.” Accepting for the 
purposes of this discussion the first and narrower definition, it is 
clearly an impossibility for any man to acquire knowledge of all history, 
and the mass of men must be content with far less. What of all the 
things that man has done, seen, thought, hoped, or felt, have values 
for the average man? The dramatic? The unusual? The heroic? Or, 
on the other hand, the normal? The customary? The humdrum con- 


Strate Literary anp HistorrcaL AssocIATION 15 


ditions of life for the mass of men? What is the test—the acid test— 
which shall determine what is pure metal and what is mere dross? 


As I see it, vitality is the final test to be applied, and bby vitality 
I mean that character in event or movement which makes it a deter- 
mining factor, for good or for evil, in the shaping of the conditions, 
present and future, of the generation in which one lives, which 
gives sounder notions of human and social interests, which relates 
man to the business of living. It is no narrow definition. It covers 
a multitude of meanings. It may consist, for example, in satisfying 
the natural human curiosity as to the deeper relationships of the 
things about us, the facts of our environment, and their connection with 
the past—“that power which to understand is strength, which to re- 
pudiate is weakness”. Vital events, vital movements, vital conditions, 
are the only ones which are worthy of widespread study and assimilation 
so far as the generality of men are concerned. 


Applying this test, it will be found that the dramatic, the unusual, 
and even the heroic events of the past have far less vital importance 
than is usually attributed to them, while the normal conditions of life 
- lie at the heart of all the great movements which have shaped the past 
and through it the present. And so the man who uses history rightly 
values events not for their dramatic interest but for the light they 
cast on the normal conditions which lay back of them and caused them. 
And knowledge of these conditions is chiefly valuable for the grasp 
it gives of the ways in which society functions and of their influence 
upon the present. The aim is not the knowledge of the past; knowledge 
is a mere means towards the end of full living. The end of it all is 
that, through a more perfect understanding of our environment, we may 
develop sounder notions of human and social interests and the capacity 
to “codperate with the vital principle of betterment,” both in enriching 
our environment and adapting ourselves to its necessities, in order 
that we may grow. For, here as elsewhere, growth is the moral end. 
The value of the past lies not in itself but in our todays and tomorrows. | 
Thus those things which touch directly the life of the world of today 
or of the future and which may bring or retard growth are vital | 
to us. 

John Richard Green saw this, and in his “Short History of the 
English People” said: 


“Tf I have said little of the glories of Cressy, it is because I have dwelt 
much on the wrongs and misery which prompted the verse of Langland 
and the preaching of Ball... . I have set Shakespere among the 
heroes of the Elizabethan age and placed the scientific inquiries of the 


16 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


Royal Society side by side with the victories of the New Model. If some of 
the conventional figures of military and political history occupy in my pages 
less than the space usually given them, it is because I have had to find 
a place for figures little heeded in common history . . . the figures of 
the missionary, the poet, the painter, the merchant, or the philosopher.” 


Tf these conclusions are true, as I earnestly believe they are, it 
is clearly apparent that there has been a vast waste of time and energy 
in the effort to instil historical knowledge into the minds of the mass 
of men. Anyone who is familiar with history as it is generally written 
and taught will bear me out in the statement that it has too often 
emphasized the unusual at the expense of the normal; that it has 
been long on events and short on movements; that it has, more often 
than not, lacked any clear distinction between the vital and the 
meaningless; that it has not given the student the type of training 
and knowledge which he can apply to the problems which he must con- 
front. In short, we have been too often content to attempt to give in- 
formation and have not sought to stimulate the development of real 
knowledge capable of practical application to life. 


Nowhere have the misconceptions as to the place, function, and 
value of historical study been more apparent and more striking than 
in the field of the history of the States of the American Union, and 
this in spite of the fact that the span of years of the oldest of them 
has been so short that it is not beyond the power of anyone to acquaint 
himself with its whole course to the present. Nor are the sources 
of their history lost and their origins wrapped in doubt and mystery. 
In the case of every one of them it is the brief story of the develop- 
ment of a people, so simple to be mastered that it is almost true 
that he who runs may read. It is also a fact easily to be proved, 
I think, that widespread knowledge of state history among its cit- 
izens is not only practicable, but that its possibilities in the way of 
good results to the commonwealth are boundless. 


Take the case of our own commonwealth, North Carolina. If the 
things which I have indicated constitute the vital in history, must 
we not revise our past attitude towards the history of the state as we 
have taught it and chiefly emphasized it? Let us ask ourselves frankly 
if we have not been inclined to emphasize in that history the things 
which, are, if vital at all, of secondary importance in reaching correct 
judgments concerning the things which have made us what we are, or 
concerning the problems of the state today. As a result of the teach- 
ing of our history does the average North Carolinian have any back- 
ground of knowledge and training by which he can analyze existing 


Strate Lirerary anp HistorrcaLt AssocraTion 17 


situations in order to base opinion concerning them and conduct in 
relation to them upon a sure foundation? Have we not, in a too eager 
desire for primacy, too frequently selected for emphasis happenings 
which have had little or no real influence on the later life of our 
people, which play no part in our life today? Similarly, have we not 
ignored the conditions, movements, and tendencies which have vitality, 
which would serve to explain to us why we are what we are, an analysis 
of which might render us more capable of shaping our destiny for the 
better? Frankly, have we not sought to write and teach the things 
calculated to develop a sort of purposeless ancestor worship, to breed 
perfect contentment, a smug satisfaction with what we are and have been, 
rather than to emphasize the larger and more significant facts calcu- 
lated to breed dissatisfaction, a divine discontent which might lead 
us faster along the paths of progress? 


For the evidence is overwhelming that our past has not been all 
glorious, and that its inglorious features rather than their reverse 
have constituted a large part of the normal conditions which have 
shaped our present. 


We are reminded at every sight of the state flag that we claim 
certain primacies in the struggle against the mother country in defense 
of the principle of no taxation without representation. It is a fact 
far more vital to our present that from 1776 to 1920—nearly a cen- 
tury and a half—we have lived under a self-imposed system of tax- 
ation which in iniquity has far surpassed anything that the Crown 
and Parliament of Great Britain in their most arbitrary and supposedly 
tyrannical mood ever dreamed of imposing on us. 


Again, we emphasize the individualistic tendencies of our people 
as indicating a love of liberty, but we fail to show that it has man- 
ifested itself most notably in our inability to organize effectively 
for the common good, to develop any widespread civie consciousness 
and civic responsibility, to see in taxation a method of cooperative 
support of a cooperative undertaking for the general welfare. Rather 
we have viewed taxes as an imposition which it was right at any cost 
of morals to evade, and, as a result, have lived for most of our years, 
through the denial of opportunity to the majority of our citizens, 
in a state of servitude. Perhaps you ask, “Liberty loving North 
Carolina in servitude?” Yes, the servitude which is of all those of 
the ages the most grinding, depressing, and enduring, the servitude 
imposed by ignorance, which throughout our history has held us, as a 
commonwealth, tied and ‘bound in its chains. It has not been confined 

2 


18 TweENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


to the ignorant. Those it has crushed utterly, cutting them off from 
their God-given heritage of freedom, and denying to them and their 
children liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in many cases life 
itself, all three of which we have solemnly declared in the Declaration 
of Independence to be inalienable rights of mankind. It has imposed 
upon the rest—the enlightened—as well, a heavy burden—that of 
carrying the dead weight of the whole, and of seeing all their ambi- 
tions for North Carolina’s swift advancement die as the gravity of 
the load irresistibly held them back on the paths of progress until 
in many cases hope itself died. 

In the same way, we have constantly reminded ourselves and the 
world that North Carolina was first at Bethel, farthest at Gettysburg 
and Chickamauga, and last at Appomattox. I yield to none in my deep 
pride and reverence for those men who so nobly and heroically carried 
the banners of a lost cause, but I submit in all seriousness that their 
achievements are not so vital in our history as are the facts that North 
Carolina has been at times first in mortality from typhoid fever 
and homicides, farthest for a long stretch of years in white adult 
male illiteracy, and at least close to last in recognizing the over- 
whelming importance of the great social purposes for which modern 
government may be said to exist. 

We have all heard of late constant boasting of our fine economy 
in government. It is a far more vital fact that we have spent less 
for the larger social aims of government than any other state save one, 
for there lies the explanation of illiteracy, poverty, the steady loss 
of population that drained our life blood through a large part of our 
history, the failure to develop the almost fabulous natural resources 
of the state, the loss of opportunity to millions among whom were doubt- 
less innumerable unhonored and unsung Murpheys, Vances, and Aycocks. 
We have needed desperately all of these millions, trained and equipped 
for constructive citizenship, but more desperately still have we felt 
the lack of missing leaders. Their loss is irreparable. 

Finally, we have heard much within the last few years of the start- 
ling figures of our Federal taxes as illustrative of our prosperity. 
The figures are indeed startling when the vital fact is presented that 
the Federal taxes paid in the state during the last year amounted to 
more by twenty-five million dollars than the state has spent in its 
whole history for the compelling duty of educating its children; and 
the further fact that the amount paid in the last two years to the 
United States in taxes is greater than all that has been expended in 
North Carolina for both public and private education combined since 
Amadas and Barlowe first saw the green island of Roanoke. 


Strate Literary anp Hisrorican ASsocrIaATION 19 


These are characteristic instances—extreme ones, if you will—of 
the tendency I have indicated, of our failure to apply the test of 
validity. All of these and many, many more are vital factors in our 
history. For every one of them touches us closely today; all have 
had significant effects upon our environment, our opportunity, our 
character as a people, upon our whole life. The burden of them will 
rest upon our children do what we will. 

Do not misunderstand me. The day will never come, and never 
ought to come, when we shall fail to recognize and be properly proud 
of the deeds and lives which are the spot lights of our history. But 
their brightness must not so dazzle us as to /blind us to the existence 
of the skeleton in our closet. The dead past cannot in such a case 
bury its own dead; that is our task. Growth and progress demand 
that we face the fact of their existence, and seek for them burial and, 
it may be, through our reformation and expiation, final oblivion. 
But until we recognize their vitality even in death, history cannot 
through the training of our citizens pour out upon us its richest bounty. 

To those of the past we owe, perchance, a debt which we can never 
pay; but no payment is demanded other than that of emulation of their 
virtues and of being warned by their faults; of remedying the wrongs 
they committed, of rectifying their errors, and of fulfilling the things 
that they omitted to do. Our great debt is to those who are yet to 
come, and it is in the light of history that we must pay that debt. 
In behalf of your children and mine, of the generation yet unborn, 
let us in North Carolina learn the vital things, and so far as in us 
lies, set about righting of the wrongs, the undoing of the mistakes, 
and the doing of all the things that have been left undone in the 
achievement of liberty and justice. 

But the task of emphasizing the vital things is not one merely of 
the historical specialist or even of the teacher; it is rather the 
responsibility of all who love North Carolina. The objective of all 
our historical study of the state must be refixed and restated. In 
our schools, in our colleges, among our people generally, emphasis 
must be laid upon the vital, and the past thus linked with the present — 
for the sake of the future. 

The end of it all should be to show, not alone wherein North Car- 
olina is first, but rather the reason for her lagging anywhere, that 
the means for improvement may be found; to give to her sons and 
daughters, not only information as to how great she is, but, more vital 
still, the knowledge of how through their efforts and their lives she 
may become far greater. 


What the World Wants of the United States 
By Joun SPENCER BASSETT, Ph.D., LL.D. 


Professor of American History, Smith College 


The elections of 1920 have come and gone. They always come and go 
once in four years in this country of ours, whether we need them or not. 
We have heard the results, and if we are good Americans we have accept- 
ed them, whether we wished them or not. This is our country, the 
country of all the people, and when the people have spoken in their elec- 
tions the individual citizen accepts the result. If he is a good citizen 
he ceases to debate the execution of the decision of the voters. It is 
only when the election comes around that he can again bring the matter 
into question and debate the wisdom of the policy that has been followed, 
or that is proposed for future adoption. I make this plain statement 
in the beginning because I wish you to follow me into the discussion 
of the evening with minds clear of any party leanings. 


Since the war with Spain, twenty-two years ago, the foreign relations 
of the United States have steadily enlarged. Much has been said 
recently about “entanglements with foreign nations.” But for twenty- 
two years we have been steadily entangling ourselves with other nations, 
binding up our future in certain well defined policies which we cannot 
change at this time without seriously compromising our honor and 
interests. We have announced our support of an “open door” in the 
East in such terms that we should be deeply humiliated as a nation 
if we had to give it up at the demand of other nations. We have 
steadily tied ourselves up in the Caribbean Sea by assuming what are 
in fact the relations of protectorates over Cuba, Santo Domingo, 
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama. We have become responsible for 
the development of the Philippine Islands into a country capable of 
self government; and in doing so we have undertaken to protect them 
while under our own control; and if we are able to carry out our announc- 
ed purpose of making them independent in due time, we shall have to con- 
tinue that protection as against the designs of ambitious neighbors. 
In all these respects the United States have accepted obligations in 
keeping with the powers of a great nation. What has ‘been done has 
alarmed nobody. It has come about gradually, and the states imme- 
diately concerned with us are not strong enough to be dangerous. But 
no one knows how soon the obligations we have taken may run counter 


Sratm LirerRARY AND HistoricaL ASSOCIATION iat 


to the interests of a great power in such a way that our utmost strength 
would tbe necessary to sustain us if the worst came to worst in the 
course we have mapped out. 

It is also noteworthy that in assuming protectorates over these 
states we have acted for our own interests only in an ideal sense. That 
is, there is no immediate necessity for establishing a protectorate 
over any of the states named, except Panama, where the protection 
of the canal is a matter of immediate policy. In regard to the other 
states we have acted because sagacity shows us that in the long run 
it is for our interests to have Cuba, Santo Domingo, and the Philippines 
exist in a state of enlightened prosperity, and for that reason we feel 
justified in lending our strength in promoting and guiding with a firm 
hand, if necessary, the development of these states. No one objects to 
this policy, so far as I know. 

Our latest notable extension of our relations with the rest of the 
world was in entering the world war. We did not do it because we 
wished to, but because it was forced upon us by the bald necessity 
of the case. The origin of the struggle was not of our making. It 
grew out of a rivalry as old as the centuries. Its seeds. were planted 
and replanted in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Treaty of San 
Stefano, the Congress of Berlin, 1878, and in the negotiations con- 
nected with the end of the Balkan war of 1912—1913. The desire 
for Constantinople, the jealousies of the Great Powers, the cultiva- 
tion of national chauvinism, the false theory that Balance of Power 
can preserve peace: all these things were not things of our making, and 
they were fundamentally connected with the origin of the war. We 
came into it when it had become a life and death struggle for world 
empire on the part of Germany. If she won no state’s life was safe; so 
we believed in 1917, and when she played her last card—ruthless sub- 
marine warfare—we were called to strike or eat words that only a 
coward could swallow. And so we fought and gave a decisive turn to the 
war. When we entered it with energy, in the summer of 1918, the 
two sides were near the point of exhaustion, but the advantage was 
with Germany. We changed the odds by throwing our fresh and 
unexhausted strength into the struggle; and the world was made secure 
from the Teutonic threat. 

Then rose a situation no one had expected in a very definite man- 
ner. The tenseness of the struggle, the exhaustion it created in all 
the belligerent states, the misplacing of business and political inter- 
relation, and the threatening rise of a proletarian regime all had to be 
dealt with. What was going to be the position of the United States 


92 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


in this settlement? Many of us have asked the question and some 
have tried to answer it, some on one side and some on another. It has 
been two years and more since the silence of peace settled over 
No Man’s Land, but to this day it is not determined what shall be 
the attitude of the United States to the problems that face the world 
in its hour of restoration. We have been so lost in the meshes of the 
great political debate that we have forgotten to consider the fundamental 
sitwation that lies behind all our contention. It is a situation that 
would exist, with or without a League of Nations. It would exist 
with an Association of Nations: It would exist if we set up a world 
court without the power of coercion. It would exist, but in another 
way, if it was decided that no formal attempts at international cooper- 
ation would be made. It is always there, in the fringes of the present, 
where today runs into tomorrow, and we cannot know too clearly what 
claims it has upon our sympathy and interests. The people are the 
rulers. It is we who have to understand so that we may decide. In 
its largest and most apparent phase it is closely connected with the 
world’s industrial life; and we cannot do better than consider for a few 
minutes in what respect international industry stands today in a situa- 
tion of abnormality, and in what respect our own interests are involved 
in its critical condition. 


The mechanism of international commerce is the product of long ex- 
perience. It depends upon the proper adjustment of international fi- 
nance, trade, credits, the supply of raw materials, hopefulness, transpor- 
tation, and various other activities. One of its noticeable qualities is 
its tendency to go in the channels in which it has been in the habit of 
going. For example, when the people of a certain state have become 
used to buying and using the merchandise of a certain other state, it is 
very difficult to get them to drop what they have been using and begin 
to use mechandise that comes from a third state, even though it may 
be possible to prove that the merchandise of the third country is better 
in itself. It is not often in the history of industry that we encounter 
a general shaking up of trade conditions, giving us the possibility of mak- 
ing new adjustments without a long period of struggle to capture markets. 


But it is just at such a situation that the world has arrived today, 
not through its choice, but through its necessities. Countries that form- 
erly were firmly established in all the phases of industry are now in severe 
straits. The manufacturing, transportation and credit facilities of the 
continent of Europe are in a confused condition. It will take them 
several years to regain the state of equilibrium, and while they are com- 
ing to that happy state the United States have a wonderful opportunity 


Sparp LireRARY AND HistoricaL AssocIaATION 23 


to get and hold a footing there, which at later time could be obtained 
only by a process of severe competition. 

Whether we do or do not utilize the opportunity before us depends 
primarily on our business men; but not entirely. It depends to a not- 
able extent on the attitude of the people of the country. Unquestion- 
ably there are a few people in the United Sattes who would deliberately 
and knowingly block our progress in this respect. But there are many 
who could block it by not knowing what the situation is and how their 
own views of what the government ought to do in the situation bear 
uponit. It is our good fortune to live under a government of the people. 
Well, at this moment the people of this country are called upon to decide 
whether or not they shall block or promote the development of the United 
States in keeping with the industrial and political opportunities that 
confront us in international affairs. With the best intentions in the 
world our people cannot be expected to act prudently in the matter unless 
they understand the opportunities that confront us. 

Before 1914 the United States was a debtor nation. For years we 
had borrowed money to build railroads, canals and industrial plants, and 
to develop mining and agriculture. . For the interest on our borrow- 
ings we had to pay Europe annually more than $250,000,000. | What- 
ever else we did this money had to be paid. We fulfilled the descrip- 
tion involved in the biblical phrase, “The borrower is a servant of the 
lender.” We had chosen, also, to put our best efforts into manufactur- 
ing, as some sections of our farmers put all their efforts in production 
of one crop, expecting to buy what they needed in other respects. Thus 
we had given up the operation of a merchant marine and were paying 
Europeans $200,000,000 a year to carry our goods to market. This in- 
terest charge and this freight bill, with the amount of money our tourists 
took abroad with them and some other items, made a grand total of 
nearly $600,000,000 a year. 

The sum was so great that it was impossible to pay it in gold, the 
only international money. To have tried to do so would have ex- 
hausted the stock of gold in the country in a few years, which means 
that our banks would have been forced to suspend specie payments of 
their notes. It was about nine times as much as the amount of gold 
mined in this country annually. The other alternative was to pay 
it in commodities; and that is what we did. Every year we sent 
abroad $600,000,000 worth of products in excess of the value of the 
merchandise we imported. If we did not quite make the total out-go 
and the total in-come balance we called the difference the balance 
of trade. If the prices of our commodities were low the result was 
that they did not sell for enough to pay all we owed for merchandise 


94 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


imported and for the stated obligations, and we said that the balance 
of trade was against us. If they sold for more than we owed the 
balance of trade was in our favor. When it was against us we sent 
gold abroad to pay it, when it was in our favor we received gold 
to make up the balance. There were times of great uneasiness when 
the balance against us was large and the drain of our gold outward 
was heavy. 

The day Europe broke into war our long period of bondage began 
to mend. Europe now began to buy from us far more heavily than 
we were buying from her. Desiring to keep her gold in Europe she 
began to send back to us the bonds we had sold her, and on which 
we were paying interest. During the first three years of the war 
she more than canceled the debt we had owed her before the war be- 
gan. At the same time we were forced to think of our own ship- 
ping. We built it up until we ceased to rely on other countries, and 
thus we saved in our own pockets the larger part of the freight bill 
we had formerly paid. But the steady stream of orders for Amer- 
ican merchandise continued to pour into our offices, and by the time 
the third year of war was beginning Europe was forced to go on a 
borrowing basis. | We now became the lender, and Europe became 
the borrower. From having been forced through many years to 
wait upon the pleasure of others, we were in a position to have others 
wait wpon our pleasure. 

In May, 1917, the United States had been in the war one month. 
Great men from London, Paris, Rome and other cities, some of which 
we had to get down atlasses to know where they were, began to arrive 
in Washington. They told us many important things about how to 
carry on the war into which we had entered; but they were all urgent 
for loans. The big states wanted big loans, the little states would 
take anything we had to offer. And to all of them our government 
lent according to their necessities. The British came first, and 
the newspapers announced that they wished to borrow £50,000,000. 
The response in the press was favorable and it was announced that 
they wished £100,000,000. After a few days it was stated that the 
United States government had decided to lend them $500,000,000. 
Probably some of us did not at the time notice the change in terms. 
The value of the pound is determined by the Rritish parliament: 
the value of the dollar is determined by the congress of the United 
States. It was thought just as well that the borrower did not 
have the power to fix the value of his own debt symbol. The incident 
marks the change of position that had occurred in the financial rela- 
tions of the two nations. For the first time in many years Great 


Srate Lirerary anp HistoricaL ASsocIATION 25 


Britain was not in the position to dictate. She had to accept dic- 
tation, which is the ordinary fate of the debtor. 


At last the war ended. The horrible wound on the face of the 
earth, running from the borders of Switzerland to the North Sea, 
ceased to bleed. Through it humanity had been yielding up its life 
for more than four years. It remained to be seen if the patient 
had been reduced to such a state of weakness that death would come 
of sheer weakness. For more than two years we have been watching 
with anxiety the struggle between exhaustion and the recupera- 
tive powers of nature. It is only with the approach of a new spring 
season, that we are beginning to feel that the crisis is about to pass 
favorably; but the patient is greatly in need of nourishment, and if 
he does not get it ugly complications are possible. 

The situation of the world today may be summed up as follows: 
In 1913 the aggregate debt of the nations of the world was $43,200,- 
931,000; since the war, by the best available information it is $279,- 
014,908,000, an increase of about $236,000,000,000. The United 
Kingdom of Great Britain, which was believed to be heavily in debt 
in 1913 at $3,485 millions, now owes $39,314 millions. . France 
owed then $6,346 millions: she now owes $46,025 millions. Italy 
then owed $2,921 millions: she now owes $18,102 millions. Germany, 
including the German states, before the war owed $5,048 millions: 
she now owes on the same basis $59,861 millions. The smaller of 
the belligerent nations have, in general, been forced to increase their 
indebtedness in the same relative manner. Nations that were be 
lieved to be burdened to the limit of prosperity in 1913 have in- 
creased their obligation from six to eleven times as much as they 
then owed. With industry prostrate they have to assume the in- 
creased burden. On a population filled with discontent they have 
to lay new and heavy taxes, with the danger that a despairing elector- 
ate may run into the extremes of radicalism and solve their difficul- 
ties by repudiating the whole obligation. It is a situation demand- 
ing patience and wise assistance from whatever source available. 

From this distressed condition of Europe turn the eye to the United — 
States. In 1913 their debt was $1,028 millions: in 1920 it was 
$24,299 millions. For the time we were in the war the rate at 
which it plunged us in debt was exceedingly high. If we had been 
in from the first, and the same rate ratio had maintained through the 
whole war, which is not probable, we should have increased our debt 
by more than $62,000,000,000, the interest on which at five per 
cent, would have amounted to $3,100 millions a year. And this 


26 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


would mean that every man, woman and child in the country would 
pay on an average of $30 a year in taxes merely to pay the interest 
on the war debt. Such a burden, heavy as it seems, would not be 
heavier than the burden before which Europe shudders. 


The United States, however, came out of the war without having 
impaired seriously their powers of production. In fact, so care- 
fully had those powers been stimulated during the war that we are 
today, as respects manufacturing plants and the mastery of the re- 
sources of nature, in a better position than ever before to meet the 
demands on our processes of production. During the war we im- 
proved the processes of agriculture, so that a man with the same 
amount of land can make more of 1 given product than before the war. 
At the same time we have materially enlarged our manufacturing 
plants, drawing into them rapidly the working population at thle 
expense of rural industries. By the census statistics just made public 
51% of the population of the country now live in towns and cities; that 
is less than half of the people in the country are producing the food 
on which the 51% of the population must live. We are thus about 
to arrive at the stage of development to which Alexander Hamilton 
looked forward in his Report on Manufactures—when we can more 
is, less than half of the people in the country are producing the food 
its wants in food products. 

For a time after peace came to the world, the demand for our 
commodities came freely from the utmost parts of the world. We 
could sell all we could produce, and more. We have never been able 
to satisfy the demand. Today there are people in Europe who are 
in dire distress for merchandise that we can make, although our 
mills are closed down or on part time, because they cannot sell 
to those who have nothing with which to pay. Thus it happens 
that textile mills in New England are closing down, while people in 
Poland are shivering in their outworn and threadbare garments. 


The outward expression of such a situation is the rate of exchange. 
In normal times nations balance their accounts by figuring the values 
of their respective units of money on a basis of the gold value in them. 
When, however, the foreign nation has not the goods to export to an- 
other nation in payment for what it imports, nor the gold with which 
to settle the balance of trade, it stops buying from that nation. When 
it sees such a cessation as a possibility, it tends to check its advance 
by raising the rate of exchange. For example, in normal times, when 
France buys from us about what she sells to us, she counts five franes 
as approximately equal to our dollar. When her citizens find that 


Srare LireRARY AND HuistoricaL ASSOCIATION OT 


it is hard to get bills on New York, that is bills to pay for what France 
has exported to the United States they begin to offer higher sums than 
five francs for a dollar. They may offer six or ten if their neces- 
sities are great. in these days they are offering, and paying daily, 
more than sixteen frances for a dollar. American imports are cost- 
ing the French people very dearly. They are costing them so much 
that there has been a great shrinkage of orders for them. It is not 
likely that there will be a change until the French are able to send us 
their own goods more freely than they can now send them. Our 
industrial relations with France are similar to our relations with most. 
other countries. Everywhere, despite the fact that we are not run- 
ning factories on full time we are sending out vastly more than we 
sent before the war, and more than we are receiving. The world’s 
balance of trade is in our favor to a large amount. 

At the same time we have a large account against the rest of the 
world for interest on the loans made by our government during 
the war. 


The amount of these loans in round numbers is $9,711,000,000 al- 
though a slight reduction has been made in some of them through read- 
justments. At the same time increased borrowing in private accounts 
in our money markets has increased still more the amount of our in- 
terest account against Europe. Combining the two items it is esti- 
mated that we are in a position to demand about $600,000,000 annually 
‘from Europe in payment of interest. At present we are not collect- 
ing the interest on our public lendings. If that were demanded it 
would put the rate of exchange still higher. While we forego it, how- 
ever, it is being paid by the faithful American taxpayer to the amount 
of about $405,000,000 a year. 

Such is the business situation today in the world. Europe is wound- 
ed to the quick, the United States are full of life and energy and ready 
for greater achievements than ever before, but suffering just at this 
moment because the purchasing power of the rest of the world is so 
badly reduced that orders are not being received. What does Europe 
want of the United States under these circumstances? And what reply 
should we make to her requests? Is it not that she wants what every 
distressed man wants of his strong and prosperous neighbor? It is 
not charity to enable her to live in a state of dependence, but aid in 
recovering economic independence. For if one of two neighbors lives 
in poverty and distress and the other lives in luxury and does not try 
to help him who suffers, the happiness and prosperity of each will be 
diminished. 


28 TwentTietH ANNUAL SESSION 


Two methods of meeting the case and rendering help to the sufferers, 
are possible. One is to wipe off the debts and let Europe make a 
new start, so far as we are concerned. The other is to adopt and carry 
through a wise plan of helpfulness to enable Europe, our customer, to 
get on her feet and pay her debts as she becomes self-supporting again. 


The objections to the first plan may be summed up as follows : 
(1) It is not scientific. It is no real help to Europe to make her a 
gift, since in accepting it she would lose that sense of self-reliance 
which is the basis of good national as well as of good personal character. 
The individual is better off when he pays his own debts. (2) Assum- 
ing that the bonds are to run for 35 years at four and a quarter per cent. 
interest the ultimate sum paid by our taxpayers would be $23,252,000,- 
000. That is too much burden to assume unless its assumption is 
inevitable. In this case it is not inevitable. Europe is not bankrupt 
utterly: she is bankrupt temporarily. There is a way to put her on 
her feet again, and that way is to accept the second of the two plans 
just mentioned. 

When a business concern falls into temporary disaster, it goes into the 
hands of a receiver, whose function is to take direction of operations, re- 
duce unnecessary expense, cut off unprofitable features of the business, 
reform the direction of sales, manufacturing and other departments and 
generally re-establish the life and energy of the enterprise. While he 
operates he holds in abeyance, if necessary, the payment of obligations 
incurred in the past; and to obtain money to carry on the business in its 
new form he issues certificates of receivership, which have status of 
preferred obligations over old debts. By this means the receiver 1s 
able to relieve the business of its embarassments, if it is fundamentally 
sound, and to put it in a way to pay off its obligations. 

There is every reason to believe that the nations of Europe are today 
fundamentally sound. 'They have the working population necessary 
to resume their ante-bellum operations, they have the plants they once 
had, except in the districts in which the ravages of war occurred in 
their worst forms; they have the facility to manufacture developed 
through long periods of skilful production; and they have the willingness 
to come back. Their great need, like the need of an embarassed cor- 
poration, is capital to tide them over the period of re-organization. 
Tf they could be put through some such process as I have indicated 
the capital could be obtained: It is only necessary to offer as security 
something more than the general pledge of the governments concerned, 
since in such case the security is nothing more than the security 


Grate Lirerary AND HisroricaL AssociaTIoN 29 


behind the general debts of these governments, and that is a security 
deeply impaired by the weight of debt that the war has produced. 


Of course it is difficult to induce the nations of Europe to place them- 
selves into the hands of a receiver. Their instincts are against giving 
up their full control over their affairs. Certainly, they could not be ex- 
pected to place themselves in the hands of any other power, however 
great and good. It is not desired that they place themselves under the 
supervision of the United States. Nor is it desirable that we should as- 
sume any such obligation. Our form of government, our domestic prob- 
lems, and our national habits are such as to make it inadvisable to set 
ourselves up as the sole guardians in such a matter. 


But it would be a different thing if there were an international 
commission, in which the nations themselves should have representatives, 
to take over the functions of adjustment; and in this commission our 
government could have representation. The plan of the League of 
Nations looked forward to such a commission. It does mot yet 
appear what is to be the future of the League. But it is not necessary 
to have the League in order to have the Commission. It is only ne- 
cessary for the governments to pledge their faith to organize it and carry 
it through in good faith. It should be endowed with power to tell the 
nations concerned what they ought to do in order to restore their finan- 
cial health, to enforce during its existence the necessary economies 
in publie expenditures, and to give direction to the development of 
national industry in so far as it is necessary to direct it in order to get 
the best possible results out of it. It is an enterprise that would not 
involve any of the co-operating states in war, or in any obligations 
that would lead to war. It would rest solely upon the world’s sense 
of good business, a thing which has never failed the world in the past. 


Now the basis of confidence in such a process is the economic 
interests of the co-operating states and nations. I can think of no 
party to the plan whose happiness would not demand its success. The 
merchants of the United States would be interested because it would 
give solidity to international trade, the financiers because it would re- 
move uncertainty from international investments, the manufacturers 
because it would enlarge the markets for their products, farmers because 
it would enable foreign purchasers to take more freely of our food and 
cotton. The taxpayers of the United States would be deeply interested 
in it because it is the surest way for them to escape having to assume 
the payment of the money we have loaned to Europe. Of the people 
in Europe I can think of none who would be opposed to such a thing 
except those experimenters who declare that human happiness depends 


30 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


upon the entire overthrow of the existing form of society. They do 
not desire the stabilization of society, for their hope is in the spread 
of discontent and confusion. 


Besides the force that a reasonable sense of self-interest would give 
to the plan, we have the power of our credit as a means of protecting 
ourselves if worse should come to worse. In any normal condition of 
trade in the coming years we can expect the balance of trade to be de- 
cidedly in our favor. By calling for the interests on the loans we can 
make it necessary for Europe to send us more than four hundred mil- 
lion dollars a year on that one account. Now outside of the United 
States the world’s production of gold does not exceed in value $305,- 
000,000. If Europe could command all of it—and she cannot do 
that—she would not be able to send us in money the interest she owes 
on the debt by $100,000,000. Let us say her available gold supply for 
export out of increased production in the mines is $250,000,000, which 
is liberal, she would still have to find $150,000,000 in either gold or 
products to pay her bill. And to this we must add the interest she 
will have to pay on the increasing volume of private loans she is con- 
tracting in this country. On the other hand, we could use this im- 
portant power of credit in such a way as to benefit Europe; or, if it be 
eame necessary through some unfair conduct on her part, it could be 
used to force her to do as we wished. If, for example, we called to- 
day for the interest due on the loan, it would exhaust the gold reserve 
of Europe in four years. It would not be necessary to use such power. 
The mere existence would be enough to warrant that it would not have 
to be used. 


In this discussion I have tried to keep the argument on a purely 
economic basis; but it has a moral side also. We are in a position to 
make ourselves liked in Europe as no other nation has been liked 
there, and being liked as a people will promote our business interests 
there. It seems inevitable that our capital will have to be loaned 
freely to put Europe on her feet again; but it makes a deal of difference 
whether we lend it in a haphazard way, or in accordance with some 
scheme that commends itself to the business intelligence of the nation; 
If in the former way uncertainty and irregularity will ensue, and 
much of the good will and respect that might have been had will be 
dissipated. 

Before Europe the United States stands today as the rich uncle 
who has been to distant lands, accumulated a vast fortune, and comes 
back among his impoverished relatives, all of whom are intent on 
getting some of his money, which they need sorely. He is not a 


Srarre Lirzrary AND Historicat AssocIATION 31 


selfish or mean man and he means to help as he can. In carrying out 
his purposes he can follow one of three courses. He can hand out 
his money lavishly, taking no receipts and asking nothing in return, 
in a truly avuncular way. In that case he will receive many kisses 
and few thanks. Or he can take the position of the very suspicious 
man, who doesn’t mean to be hoodwinked by persons who profess their 
love and loyalty. In such a case he will have his money screwed out 
of him in parcels, some of it going to those who should have it, and some 
of it going to those whose tongues are most clever. A third course is 
to take a broad view of the situation, confer in good faith with all who 
want, get the facts on the situation, lay down on the table as much as 
he can spare, and hand it out to those who wish and who will use 
it in such a way as will yield him a, safe return while it enables them 
to proceed in their business in an advantageous manner. For which 
of these courses have you the proper respect? And for which do you 
think the beneficiaries will have the greatest gratitude? By follow- 
ing the third the wise uncle will make himself a place in the com- 
munity. He will be able to write his ideas on its future development 
and maintain some kind of control on its course. 


What does the world want of this rich and fortunate country of ours? 
Money? Yes, it wants money—not money flung at it in the spirit 
of a nabob, as one who should say: “Take it! I have plenty!” But money 
that is the expression of a broad understanding of the world’s problems; 
money that is burnished with intelligence; money that talks because 
it understands the task it has to do. It needs the help that is an ex- 
pression of knowledge. That is the only help that is worthy of us, 
aud the only help that will yield us the permanent friendship of the 
peoples of the world. And if it is given to the world in the way that 
makes the world respect our leadership, the result will write the word 
“America” across the history of the twentieth century in letters that 
shall never fade. It will make for us an influence that is only limited 
by the capacity of our country to wield it. 


Please do not misunderstand me. I do not wish to force the current 
of events. That is always unwise. But it does not seem too much to 
urge that the situation actually before the world today be turned over 
io men who know how to meet it. When the business intelligence of 
the United States has been trusted it has always proved equal to the 
demand upon it. Turn over the world’s industrial crisis to it. Tell it 
to obtain first of all the confidence and co-operation of the business 


32 TwentistH ANNUAL SESSION 


intelligence of the stricken countries. I think it can do that, for it 
has always been able to do it in the past. Let it, out of this general con- 
fidence and co-operation, create the group that is to direct and give 
authority to the efforts that are to be made. And while the process is 
going on let us all agree that the people of the United States will give 
their moral support to the government. Let them also remember to 
keeps hands off. There must be no throwing of monkey-wrenches. 
There must for once be a trusting of the experts in the realms of the 
technical. Whether we shall meet this crisis in some such way as this, 
or muddle through it according to the instincts of the moment, is the 
great question of the day. What the world wants of the United States 
today is business sagacity, breadth of view, and leadership. 


Patriotism 
By JoHN ERSKINE, PH.D., LL.D. 


Columbia University 


Though we cannot say that the outward circumstances of a man’s 
life are the logical projection of his character, yet we may wish that 
they were. In so far as we can make the world over, we should like a 
man’s possessions and the scene he occupies to be, as Socrates prayed, 
in harmony with what he is. But however this harmony may be our 
desire, it seems to be no concern of the gods; the human lot, if left to 
itself, continues to fall in curious and unequal places, for the historian 
to set down, even if he cannot explain them, and for the philosopher to 
surmount by whatever wings he may command. Only from time to 
time intelligence looks the hard fact in the face, and some strong will 
undertakes to bring about in life that order which it cannot find there. 
Then, at least for that moment, the race approaches the moral climax of 
civilization, when some man assumes responsibility for the environment 
in which he has been placed. To make so magnificent an assumption 
is once more to steal the fire from heaven. The exploit we need not 
add, is unusual; the Titan is rare. But no other assumption converts 
the stream of experience into a drama so exciting, so human and so 
significant, or opens to the imagination a career so bold. In private 
life, although we cannot measure the extent to which the accidents of 
birth and nature determine our fortunes, yet without hesitation we 
distinguish in degree of nobility between him who accepts his fate with 
resignation, as something that has happened to him, and him who tries 
first to see in each event some witness to his own progress or his own 
error in the art of life. Though in this world of infinite changes and 
chances we are aware how small an area of experience can ever be 
brought under our control, yet since the area of responsibility is all the 
field we have for the exercise of character, we give our admiration to 
the man who would enlarge its boundaries. Not only in private life, _ 
but in public affairs as well. There will always be men and women 
who conceive of government and of society as sections of environment 
related to them geographically, as it were, but not morally—objects for 
them to study, to criticize, and possibly to reform. But they whose 
character is most exalted, and whose imagination. embraces the widest 
are of experience, perceive that the reform must begin in themselves, 
for they are government, and they are society—or if this is not strictly 

3 


3+ TwrENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


the fact, they desire it at once to be so. For them patriotism is a human 
and practical religion, a pursuit of their own ideals in the image of their 
country, a moral passion urging them to the decisions of intelligence 
and of conduct, with possibilities of heaven or hell. 


What usually goes by the name of patriotism and takes on extra- 
ordinary value in time of war, is the natural love of the soil, of the 
place where we and our people have lived. Unless some abnormal in- 
fluence pervert us, all men have this love which clings to the world as 
it is. Yet this kind of patriotism, one of the most beautiful of instincts, 
is nevertheless an instinct, and needs to be distinguished from that rare 
moral virtue of which I now speak, which not only regards its environ- 
ment with pious affection, but assumes responsibility for it, as for the 
consequences of its own choice. The man who never to himself has 
said, “This is my own, my native land,” is in some sense indeed a 
dead soul; he lacks that instinctive piety out of which what we may 
call a moral patriotism can rise. But the majority of mankind, who 
are frequently conscious of their native land, and who earn thereby the 
common name of patriots, do not, after all, deserve the exclusive 
award of the title, nor the excessive praise which poets and orators 
have lavished upon them. Why should a man be praised for having 
that which not to have is to be despicable or maimed? What virtue is 
there in having the usual two hands or two eyes? Or what high 
place in story should be ours merely for loving the children we beget ? 
Do we suspect our instincts begin to fail, that we should pride our- 
selves on having one good instinct still in common with other 
animals? The love of the soil, the love of our own place, like the 
affection for our young, is planted it seems in every heart that beats at 
all; it is not so much a grace of life as a condition on which life is toler- 
able; it is so bound up with the other rooted pieties of our nature, that 
to separate it, as I wish now to do, from a higher quality, to say that it 
is only an instinct, and to praise the virtue that rises upon instinct, 
seems to intend violence, even sacrilege, to a sacred trust. Yet without 
intending violence or sacrilege, we may properly remind ourselves of 
some half forgotten claims of the life of reason. At critical moments of 
history there have been thoughtful enquiries as to which kind of patriot- 
ism is truly a virtue, the fidelity to the environment, or the insistence 
that the environment should be faithful to our character; and twice or 
thrice great spirits have tried to dedicate even the mass of common men 
to a moral responsibility for the world about them. Such another 
critical moment we live through now and we have special need to make 
the enquiry once more. No single leader has arisen to dedicate us to a 


Srate Lirerary anp Histroricat Association 35 


moral patriotism, and none seems likely at this moment to arrive. All 
the more cause why scholars as a body, and men of thoughtful habits 
should make available for their fellows the wisdom that the race experi- 
ence yields. This wisdom, if known, would itself be a kind of leader- 
ship, and no other kind, as it seems to me, are we likely to have for some 
time. - 

During the war and since the armistice we have listened to voices un- 
deniably great. We have been summoned to sacrifice and to unselfish- 
ness, we have had held before us a noble and, however vague, a last- 
ing vision of world peace, and we have been urged—we believe not in 
vain—to assume responsibility for the conditions of mankind outside our 
borders. But at the same time, and with an inconsistency not new in 
human annals, we have had preached at us, and perhaps we ourselves 
have preached, the desirability of only one kind of patriotism at home, 
the instinctive kind, which issues in obedience rather than in moral re- - 
sponsibility. We have watched the coming on the American scene of a 
formidable apparition—the spirit which lays upon the political offender, 
upon the minority which we hope is mistaken, but which we know is 
frank, a condemnation more lasting and more severe than upon the 
weakling who hides himself at the nation’s call for aid. A deficiency 
in the primal instinct to cherish and protect our kindred and the place 
of one’s birth, we have seen treated by a considerable and supposedly 
solid public opinion, as a not very serious defect, perhaps even a symp- 
tom of idealism; whereas a disposition to scrutinize national policy or 
national conduct, or to sharpen the public conscience to defects in our 
social or political world, with the intent to remedy them, has come to 
be thought dangerous as a viper’s fangs, not to be argued with but to 
be stamped on. The spirit which makes this distinction is, I repeat, a 
formidable apparition, fraught as I think with no good to our national 
philosophy. It is, for one thing, too much like the spectre of ruth- 
lessness against which we undertook to crusade, and it has aptitudes for 
teaching us those quick ways of dealing with minorities which we used 
to consider typical of the older Russian tyranny. Worst of all, the 
spirit which discourages the rational and moral patriotism, and culti- 
vates only the instinctive and emotional, will raise up a dragon to devour 
those noble dreams of world unselfishness to which, as I said, we have 
been called to dedicate ourselves. The love of the soil, so long as it re 
mains only an instinct, has in it no element of concern for anyone 
else’s land. We need not be surprised, therefore, if a nation trained 
to be patriotic instinctively and uncritically, and in no higher way, 
subscribes at last to an exclusive nationalism, with indifference, almost 
with hostility, to other people. 


36 TWENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


To raise the question at all is to incur risk of misunderstanding. 
There is the risk of seeming to agree with any political offender who 
may come to your mind as illustration of the point just made. In 
suggesting that moral patriotism is more desirable than the merely in- 
stinctive kind, we may seem blind to the fact that when an instinct is 
opposed to an idea it is usually the instinct which prevails; after 
enough instruction to convince us of the contrary we still have a feel- 
ing that the sun goes around the earth. We know further that to in- 
timate the inferiority of the instincts as guides to conduct as over 
against the reason is a curious folly in an age like ours when both the 
familiar and popular philosophies have chosen to glorify instinct. But 
this is an old battle field of intelligence, this opposition of the rational 
to the merely instinctive life. At the risk of being misunderstood and 
at the still more certain risk of accomplishing no immediate victory, all 
of us who have hope for intelligence and would choose the better things 
of the mind, must cheerfully enlist once more in the oft-defeated cause 
of reason. Though we know that the humane philosophy of Aristotle, 
of Christ, and of Aquinas has never yet been widely practised, and that 
allegiance to it is ceremonial more often than even theoretically sincere, 
yet for us it is still the best that has been said or thought in the world. 
And, however vain our championship of it may seem, yet if men will 
take even a passing interest in an idea, we may perhaps prepare in the 
public mind a greater susceptibility to those seeds of reason which when 
they fall only on the instincts, fall on very hard ground indeed. The. 
League of Nations, for example, is an idea, but being an idea, it cannot 
hope to succeed as the articulation and harmonizing of purely in- 
stinctive patriotism. It can become effective only when the patriotisms 
brought under it are of the same order as itself, rational and moral. 
There is no reason to hope, nor particularly to wish, that the various 
patriotisms of the world, even though they should become rational, 
would be identical or even in much initial harmony with each other, any 
more than we can expect the rational ideals of the individual to 
coincide with the ideals of his neighbor. But once we have raised 
patriotism to the level of reason, we shall have brought it to the 
sphere of intelligence and responsibility in which light and agreement 
can conceivably be -arrived at. 


II 


Meanwhile, it is only for the principle of patriotism as moral 
responsibility that we need to plead. The principle truly needs our 
championship. There are those in the world still who find no meaning 


State Lirrrary AnD Historicat ASsocrATION 37 


in life, who give it up as a hard question put to us daily for our irrita- 
tion without hope of an answer. There are others, the majority among 
us, who find an answer to the question in obeying our instincts and in 
submitting to our environment. There are still a few who look for the 
answer in man himself, in his control of his instincts and his 
dedication of the environment to his own uses. The majority of us, I 
repeat, have relegated fate to the world about us; in modern philosophy 
it is the universe, not the human race, that has the real adventure: in 
morals. A few of us, however, following Greek thought as we believe 
at its best, would place the throne of fate as much as possible in our 
own nature, giving to ourselves a divine possibility, the freedom of 
choice that a god should have, and a responsibility for his actions that 
not even a god could avoid. As Herodotus and Thucydides wrote history, 
they explained their wars or their other afflictions as caused by the 
ambition or the selfishness or the unwise decision of individual men, and 
for their happiness and prosperity they gave credit not to the environ- 
ment but to their fellows. When Peisistratus set up his tyranny in 

Athens, Solon addressed the famous verses to his neighbors: 7 


“Tf ye have endured sorrow from your own baseness of soul, impute not 
the fault of this to the gods. Ye have yourselves put the power into the 
hands of these men.” 


And when Pericles in his great speech had extolled the city above all 
other states, he turned the glory into a crown for the dead: 


“The Athens I have praised is only what these men have made it.” 


The difference between this Greek point of view and ours is a 
difference of philosophy, not, as we often fancy, a difference of knowl- 
edge. We need only examine Thucydides or Herodotus to be persuaded 
how modern were those old historians in their observation of economic 
or other advantages or handicaps; they saw all that we see. Thucydides 
tells us that the richest soils are always most subject to a change of 
masters; he gives as his opinion that Agamemnon was enabled to raise the 
expedition against Troy more by his superiority in strength than by the 
oaths of the suitors to follow him; he says that the expedition against 
Troy was small, not for lack of men but for the difficulty of providing - 
an adequate commissary, and he thinks the Trojans were able to hold 
out so long only because a large proportion of the Greeks had to culti- 
vate the invaded soil or forage for supplies; he points out the significance 
‘of sea power, in peace and in war; he says that the Peloponnesian war 
was made inevitable by the growth of the Athenian power, and the fear 
which this inspired in the Lacedaemon. All this sounds modern. But 
Thucydides does not make up his history out of the environment—out 


38 TwentTieTH ANNUAL SESSION 


of economic or any other external conditions; rather, he goes on to tell 
how Athens decided to protect the Coreyrans against the Corinthians, 
and how this decision started the war; how the Spartans massacred the 
Plataeans, and how the Athenians exterminated the inhabitants of Melos, 
and the moral results of those actions; and how at last through evil 
choices the power of Athens was destroyed. He hoped, he said, that his 
record might be prized not as a romantic chronicle of events, but as a 
storehouse of human wisdom, that it might be judged useful by those 
inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the 
interpretation of the future. With this purpose, he treats the Pelopon- 
nesian war as a series of decisions which the combatants had to make, 
and the battles and other events follow as the divine commentary on the 
decisions. He introduces the account of conduct in each instance with 
an elaborate report of the debate of which that conduct was the event, 
and we hardly needed his hint to observe that the speeches as he gives 
them were probably never made, but are his statements, rather, of the 
various points of view which converged on that issue. His interpretation 
of history, therefore, is neighbor to Plato’s method in philosophy, a 
dramatizing of moral ideas, for the better observation of their implica- 
tions. 


Much as we may admire this high-mindedness in Thucydides, who has 
been a long time dead, I confess I cannot perceive ia tendency in living 
historians to imitate it, nor in the rest of us to desire it of historians now 
writing. Explain the fall of a great power as the moral consequence of 
its decisions! A British historian might so narrate the collapse of 
Germany, but would a German historian so narrate it? Or would an 
English or American historian tell the story with such a conviction of 
moral responsibility, if it were Great Britain or the United States that 
had come to disaster? And if he did, what would we do to him? But 
Thucydides was an Athenian. Writing of his own city and of his own 

day, he refused to remove from man the dignity of moral choices; he per- 
" sisted in the faith that the good and the bad of life are not causes, but 
rather things to choose between. The extremes of Aristotelian temper- 
ance, the earthly and the heavenly steeds in Plato’s vision, were to come 
under the control of intelligence. Because of this locating of fate in 
human conduct, this enshrining of the god in the heart of man, the Greek 
philosophy once seemed humane, and the monuments of the Greek spirit 
were called the humanities. We have kept the word ‘but have somewhat 
lost the old meaning. The humane person was one who understood his 
responsibility for his own moral career; with us the humane person is 
one who by his benefactions becomes as it were the moral system of his 
neighbor. Our kind of humaneness Herodotus noticed from time to 


Sratp Lirzerary anp Historica AssocIATION 39 


time in the character of a Persian tyrant, but we must search long for 
it in portrait of a Greek, who thought it a greater benefit to increase 
the freedom of a man’s moral choice than to protect him from the choice 
altogether. Says Pericles: 


“The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our 
ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over 
each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for 
doing what he likes. Yet we obey the laws, not only the written, but 
also those which, though unwritten, cannot be broken without dishonor.” 


Not all the hearers of Pericles understood his high philosophy, of 
that we may be sure. Doubtless many of those dead whom his oration 
immortalized had fought for their portion of Attic soil instinctively, 
with a quite simple clinging to their hearth, and with no more complex 
patriotism. When the Peloponnesians began to invade the country, it 
was by the advice of Pericles that the country folk had removed to the 
city their wives and children, their household furniture, even in 
some cases the woodwork of their houses. Thucydides says they found it 
hard to move, since most of them had always lived in the country. They 
were pagans in the old and profound sense, rooted to the earth by 
immemorial pieties; the soil they worked in was one with the dust of 
their fathers. They were mindful too, of a legendary independence, of 
the self-sufficient dignity of each minute village in the days before 
Theseus made Athens a political center. From such households there 
must have been many recruits in the Athenian army who fought not 
exactly because they had made an Aristotelian choice, but because it 
was unthinkable not to defend the family hearth and the family tombs. 
Just who the invader was, made no difference—Xerxes but yesterday, 
Archidamus today. The relatives of such men, listening to Pericles, 
may indeed have felt in some dim way the difference between instinctive 
patriotism and that vaster loyalty, moral and to their minds impersonal, 
of which the political orator spoke; but they probably preferred the 
loyalty of instinct. 

It is just because the audience may not have agreed with Pericles in 
his immortal oration that we may turn to it now for light. On what 
subject did they disagree? We are often reminded nowadays that 
Pericles was seizing a dramatic occasion to glorify Athens and the cause 
of which he was the leader. On whit ground did he glorify Athens? He 
represented it as a state for which the citizen was morally responsible ; 
and if some of his hearers disagreed, it was because they doubted their 
share in this responsibility, or in their hearts may have declined to 
accept it. The grandeur of the oration is in the attempt to dedicate a 
whole people to a moral instead of an instinctive philosophy—grandeur 


40 TweENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


no whit lessened by the reluctance of the people to be so dedicated. The 
entire ceremony of which the oration was a part, had for its purpose to 
enlarge the tribal loyalty to the dimensions of a national ideal, and 
gently to bring away the ancestral religion from merely local shrines, 
and attach it to a place of common and intertribal memories. In the 
funeral procession, says Thucydides’, cypress coffins were borne in 
cars, one for each tribe, the bones of the dead being placed in the coffin 
of their tribe. So much concession at least, to a natural and instinctive 
patriotism. Among these coffins was carried one empty bier, decked 
for the missing—that is, for those whose bodies could not be recovered. 
Finally, the dead were laid, not in their ancestral burying grounds, 
in the ancient villages they had perished to defend, but in the public 
sepulchre, in the suburb of the city called Beautiful, where they who 
fell in war were always buried, with the exception of those slain at 
Marathon, who for their extraordinary valor were interred on the spot 
where they fell. It was over the new graves in the military cemetery 
that Pericles spoke, before mourning relatives who perhaps would have 
preferred to bury the dead sons or husbands nearer their ancestors— 
as some of us, with the same instinct, would bring them home from 
France; so much more comforting is it, in spite of all we profess as to 
matter and spirit, that they should be covered with familiar dust than 
that they should rest in an idea. 


Before such hearers Pericles made his great plea for intelligent patri- 
otism : 


“What was the path by which we reached our eminence?” [he asked.] 
“What was the form of government under which we became great? Out of 
what national habits did our greatness spring?” 


Our institutions are free, he continued; advancement in public life goes 
by merit, and liberty in private life is without lawlessness. We have 
leisure for the mind, and we welcome the stranger within the city. But 
most of all we are morally responsible, and we cultivate reason. We 
place the disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining 
to struggle against it. Instead of regarding discussion as a hindrance 
to action, we think it an indispensible preliminary to any wise action 
at all. In our enterprises we both dare and deliberate, and we give the 
palm of courage to those who best know the difference between hardship 
and pleasure, and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. 


“The Athens I have praised,” [he concludes, ] “is only what these men and 
their like have made her. For this offering of their lives, made in common 
by them all, they have each received that renown which never grows old 


(1) The following passages are paraphrased and adapted from the translation by Crawley. 


Srate Lirerary anp Historrcat AssocraTIon 41 


and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones are placed, but 
that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally 
remembered. For the grave of great men is the whole world. In lands far 
from their own, far from the funeral shaft and the epitaph, there is also 
a wider record of them, written in the human heart.” 


Those hearers who were reluctant to leave their dead in the national 
cemetery must have known that the last great phrases were directed 
particularly at them. They probably felt that Pericles was going quite 
too far when he threw overboard altogether the genius of locality, and 
said that the grave of great men is the whole world. But they had one 
tradition even in their tribal pieties, which may have helped them to 
understand better than we do his doctrine of moral responsibility in 
patriotism. They may not have followed him in the argument that 
man’s concern is with the moral world; that he must take sides in moral 
questions; that the crisis of the state is simply his problem in morality 
on its largest scale; that the state is his creation, his poetry, the last 
incarnation of his ideal life, which should sum up all his other arts. But 
every one of them, of whatever tribe, would recall in his own history 
the legend of those who had founded states—Theseus and Solon, and 
innumerable other heroes from mythical time. Some of the states 
founded turned out well, he would recall; others were bad. In either 
case the legend explained the result by the character of the founder. 
He would think of these pioneers as we think of the pilgrim fathers, 
for whom the creation of government was not an end; but the Greek who 
listened to Pericles would also feel, as we sometimes do not, even when 
we think of the pilgrim fathers, that no state is established once for 
all, that no settlers are the exclusive pioneers, that no citizen, therefore, 
1s excused from exercising the duty and the right to found the state again 
in his own moral choices. Athens had learned early to condemn all 
neutrals in public affairs. Plutarch reminds us of Solon’s law that 
whenever a rebellion or sedition occurred, those who had not taken a 
definite stand on one side or the other should be disfranchised. With 
these principles in-mind, the philosophers taught that all education 
should have for its end intelligent and moral citizenship, and that 
the difference between tyranny and democracy is that the tyrant has the 
moral responsibility for the state which he alone creates, whereas in a 
democracy all the citizens share the continuous founding, and all are 
responsible for it. The Athenians from the outer villages may have 
been restive under the far-reaching phrases of Pericles, but if they 
reflected at length on the doctrine, they would recall that the heroes of 
their antiquity had practised that virtue for which the great statesman 
was now speaking. 


42 TwentinstH ANNUAL SESSION 


iil 


The wish to dedicate Athenian patriotism to a moral career, to raise 
it up to the region of ideas, in which conscious responsibility is pos- 
sible, is found in other Greeks than Pericles—in Socrates, in Plato, in 
Aristotle, and in the orators; and if our modern interpretations are not 
altogether mistaken, it is the inspiration of most of the dramas 
Euripides composed. If we look at life fairly, with due allowance for 
all its difficulties and for the immense pressure in the daily routine 
that holds us, by a spiritual gravitation, to leaden-footed contact with 
familiar paths, it is not surprising that none of these prophets was per- 
manently listened to, or that Socrates and Euripides, the most out- 
spoken, were condemned by public opinion. A similar fate has attended 
others in later centuries, who with the same loftiness of spirit tried to 
translate into terms of reason the passion for their city or for their 
land. Dante hoped so to consecrate loyalty to Florence and loyalty to 
Rome. He dreamt of a two-fold city of God and earth, the Church and 
the Empire, both implanted by divine love in the midstream of history, 
that through both at once man might enjoy here the moral career with- 
out which no soul can be disciplined for heaven. That he wrote of 
monarchy and thought in terms of the empire is of little consequence in 
comparison with the fact that his ideal state was to be a moral oppor- 
tunity, and that in his definitions of it he lays down a program for 
intelligence. Others might love their native Florence for other reasons, 
or with very differennt purposes might speculate as to the reform of 
church and state, but this is the old and rare philosophy—how familiar 
in the periods Thucydides and of Aristotle; how very unfamiliar still in 
the actual patriotisms history records! In politics as in science, he 
begins’, we must do for posterity what our ancestors did for us; we 
must be ourselves in turn ancestors. For simply to be loyal to the past 
is to bring the past to an end, as the talent was buried in the napkin. We 
do not value a tree for last season’s fruit. What fruit would you bear by 
demonstrating once more some theorem of Euclid? Who, after Aristotle, 
need expound the nature of felicity? Or who, after Cicero, need under- 
take the apology of old age? 

He continues by expounding his new fruits in very old terms, yet 
they keep forever a kind of novelty, since the race has but seldom at- 
tended to them, least of all, perhaps, in the very times and places where 
they have been learned by rote. The poet was aware that his contempo- 
raries would in one way recognize the Aristotelian echoes, but in quite 


1 De Monarchia, paraphrased and adapted from Wickstead’s translation. 


Starr Lirzrary AND HistroricaL AssocIATION 43 


another sense he hoped that these great definitions, these essential 
manoeuvres of the mind, might come like revelation to men sunk in 
passions and instincts. There are some things, he proceeds, in no degree 
subject to our power; they are for our thought and contemplation. 
Other things, however, are subject to our power; we can think about 
them and do them. In the case of these, which compose the world of 
our moral responsibility, the doing is not undertaken for the sake of 
thinking, but the thinking for the sake of doing. The whole field of 
politics is eminently a part of this moral world, in which intelligence 
should precede conduct. For (passing over the special arguments for 
monarchy) the human race is best disposed when most free. This will be 
clear if the principle of freedom be understood. The first principle of 
freedom is freedom of choice, which many have on their lips but few 
in their understanding. They get as far as saying that free choice is 
free judgment in matters of will; and herein they say the truth, but 
the import of the words is far from them. What is judgment? 
Judgment is the link between apprehension and appetite. For first 
a thing is apprehended, then when apprehended it is judged to be good 
or bad, and finally he who has so judged it pursues or shuns it. 

With this simple capitulation of old principles Dante embarks on 
his demonstration of God’s will as to the empire and the church. By 
the same principles in his great poem he judges the politicians of 
Florence, friend and foe, and assigns to them with fervent rigor their 
place in hell or purgatory, and by the same principles he judges his own 
failure to deserve the salutation of Beatrice. One who has moved in the 
true order of reason, in which judgment controls appetite or instinct, 
and who yet condescends to a lower order, in which appetite or instinct 
controls judgment, has abdicated his high station, a little lower than the 
angels, and has joined the beasts. For he has surrendered his freedom, 
as the patriot surrenders liberty when his patriotism becomes only in- 
stinctive. If the judgment is moved by the appetite, which to some 
extent anticipates it, it cannot be free, for it does not move of itself, but 
is drawn captive by another. And hence it is that brutes cannot have 
free judgment, because their judgments are always anticipated by 
appetite. . 

If we may speak of appetite and instincts interchangeably, then these 
axioms and definitions allow no room among the virtues for that kind of 
loyalty to city or state which is instinctive. The natural love for one’s 
birthplace or for one’s habitat is a force which judgment or reason 
should guide; it cannot be an ideal in itself. It is for this doctrine of 
freedom that Dante stands in the race memory with Pericles and the few 
other great statesmen who have seen the moral aspect of patriotism. If 


44 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


you protest that Dante used his axioms and definitions as a base on which 
to set up a defence of monarchy, I reply that Milton, a patriot of an 
equally reasoned morality, used much the same axioms and definitions 
to defend the idea of popular government; in either case, the political 
program they chose is far less important than the fact that the choice 
was rational. If you object again that such diversity of result is in- 
convenient or deplorable, and that a kind of patriotism which permits 
diametrically opposed conclusions cannot be sound, I must reply that 
this criticism can be brought against any system of morality which 
specifies freedom of judgment as one of its principles. The desire for 
unanimity is a deep-rooted instinct, which leads speedily to confusion 
wherever two or three are gathered together, for unless the ideal of free 
judgment tempers somewhat the demand for harmony, our instincts 
persuade us that those who disagree with us are evil. If you allow as 
much , so far as the individual is concerned, yet believe that the general 
good is best served when the citizens do not distract each other by vari- 
ous ideals, however rational, of the state they yield allegiance to, but 
simply and with single devotion love that state as it is, I reply that such 
a program of instinctive patriotism would produce harmony in the 
United States, in Great Britain and in Japan, let us say, and war among 
all three. The grace to understand and to sympathize with the stranger 
within or without our gates comes not by instinct but by the discipline 
of reason, It was a mistake for Dante to argue for unity of decision in 
the moral world; he then had to argue for one empire and only one. 
Milton, likewise, had he pressed his political applications far enough, 
would: perhaps have deserted the principle of moral liberty and reached 
a Puritan intolerance. Pericles in the midst of his great vision was 
pleading for Athenian supremacy. This is to say that all three were to 
some extent caught in a natural instinct. But to all of them it would 
have seemed intelligent to use Wordsworth’s image of the nobler alle- 
giance; he felt for England, he said, as the mother for her child. The 
love of the mother for her child, not the love of the child for its mother. 
If our country is only our mother, we owe it reverence and gratitude, but 
it is too late to control its career, If it is our child, however, we are 
responsible for it. 


IV 


T offer ancient examples of a constant problem. In a world shared by 
both instinct and reason, the wise man will desire both in their strength 
even though it is hard to reconcile them. The stronger the instinct, the 
harder to control it; the instinct which begets love in us for our country 
will sooner or later. if uncontrolled, beget hate in us for other countries; 


Srate Lirerary anD HisrorrcaLt AssocIATION 45 


yet if the instinct is not strong, what energy is there to control? In the 
United States we have become detached from the soil; we have moved 
about from place to place, we have almost forgotten, some of us, what 
the household hearth looks like; no wonder that the instinctive loyalty 
which defends particular places and neighborhoods has seemed to fail 
within us; no wonder that we have tried to fan it into new flame. I 
believe we shall succeed in rousing such fervent gratitude in the average 
American heart for the fact that he is an American. and such-unquestion- 
ing devotion to the land as it is, that unless we quickly bring our impulses 
under the control of moral judgment, we may become a menace to the 
earth. That way to madness is easier than we may think. To follow 
such a course is not only to withdraw within our appetite, as Dante would 
say, but it is also to leave the weapons of reason entirely in the hands 
of the crank, the agitator, and the radical, who whatever else may be 
their ignorance, understand the force of the old doctrine, that who most 
avail themselves of reason shall have the greatest power. The ideal state 
which the radical portrays seems to some of us an abomination. It has, 
however, the one great virtue of being an ideal, for which the agitator 
not infrequently goes to jail. We meet his ideals chiefly with our in- 
stincts. It is a natural instinct to build the jail and put him in it. But 
is there no ideal America to oppose to his, no ideal more soundly im- 
agined, which reason might successfully urge upon him? Are we less 
than he the children of Plato, dreamers of ideal states and builders of 
just republics? If that is true, if we have surrendered to others the 
exclusive use of rational processes, then for us the monuments of liter- 
ture and history have lost their meaning; the ages have stored up wis- 
dom in vain. 

But not in vain. we believe. The country our fathers bequeathed to us 
is too precious to be interred in any of our instincts, not even in the 
noblest. Too many dreams have voyaged to our shores for us to let go 
the habit of vision. And the patriotism which still dreams, has in it 
promise of the highest morality. We shall be as a guard set about the 
established city. We shall earn the right also to say with the Athenian 
envoys thousands of years ago, “We risked all for a city that existed only 
in hope..” 


William Richardson Davie and Federalism 
By H. M. WAGSTAFF 


University of North Carolina 


Just a round century ago William Richardson Davie died upon his 
estate in South Carolina. It is fitting that the Literary and Historical 
Society of North Carolina, the state to which he gave his greatest 
service and which has every right to claim him as her own, should at this 
time assess the value of his contribution to her life. 

Davie was born, 1756, in Egremont, Cumberlandshire, England. At 
seven years of age he was brought to South Carolina and adopted by his 
maternal uncle, William Richardson, a Presbyterian minister who owned 
an estate in the Waxhaw settlement on the Catawba. His preliminary 
education was at the hands of his uncle, then a period at Queen’s Acad- 
emy, Charlotte, North Carolina. He then entered Nassau Hall, Prince- 
ton, and received his arts degree at the hands of Dr. John Witherspoon 
in 1776, having employed his preceding vacation as a volunteer in the 
American army in its unsuccessful defense of New York against the 
British. With this youthful taste of military service, and upon the 
death of his uncle almost coincident with his graduation, Davie returned 
to South Carolina and almost immediately thereafter entered upon the 
study of law at Salisbury in North Carolina. In the following year 
he interrupted his studies to join a military force under General Allen 
Jones which was moving southward to aid in the defense of Charleston. 
Tn 1779 he became lieutenant of dragoons raised in the Salisbury Dis- 
trict, was attached to Pulaski’s Legion, and integrated with General 
Lincoln’s army of the South. In the fighting about Charleston he was 
severely wounded. During his tedious recovery he resumed his law 
studies at Salisbury and received his license in the spring of 1780. The 
rising tide of British success in the state to the south called him again 
to arms in the same year. He was now in continuous service to the 
close of the war and emerged from the conflict with a reputation for 
military skill and daring second to no partisan leader in the South. 
After peace Colonel Davie married Sarah Jones, of Halifax, eldest 
daughter of General Allen Jones, his old military commander. He 
settled in Halifax for the practice of law and swiftly made a high place 
for himself in his chosen profession. 

Davie’s political activities form an intimate chapter of the state’s his- 
tory for the next twenty years. His political views, however, would 


State Lirrrary anp Histrorrcat Association 47 


have scant meaning to present time unless projected upon the back- 
ground of our early republican era. The North Carolina’ of the first 
two decades after the Revolution held in solution the elements which, 
though slow in precipitation, were ultimately to shape her. present 
character. Social democracy was more nearly a reality in North Caro- 
lina than in either her neighbor to the north or to the south. This 
had been dictated by economic conditions less sharply marking the 
rich from the poor. State individualism, infused with the spirit of 
democracy, was the primary characteristic with which the state had 
emerged from the struggle for independence. This characteristic as 
a force now found political expression in a studied disregard of obliga- 
tions to the Confederation government, in continued harrying of Tories, 
in new issues of paper money, in the prolongation of vicious “stay laws,” 
and in extreme decentralization of state authority. It represented the 
tentative grcping of the democratic spirit unchastened by experience. 
The theory of the French Revolution was already born in America be- 
fore 1789. 

It has always seemed to me that the American Revolution was pro- 
duced by two distinct sets of forces, emanating from two different groups 
of men. Of the first were the reasoned out opinion of intelligent and 
educated Americans that they were the equals of Englishmen at home, 
equal in all their rights and in all their capacities for self-government. 
They were humiliated that England sent officials to America instead of 
choosing officials in America. It was natural that these sensitive and 
high-spirited colonial-Englishmen should capitalize the blunders 6f 
George III’s place-men. The other set of forces was born of the mass 
and was the product of frontier environment acting upon a naturally 
independent and individualistic race. It may be summed up as the 
spirit of democracy, a thing impatient of restraints, even of those laid 
by itself. Ultimately this spirit was to more sharply characterize Amer- 
ica in contrast to Europe than even its devotion to the theory of self- 
government. 

This influence affected the mass mind and therefore the larger group 
of Americans. Davie and most of the educated men in North Caro- 
lina, as indeed in America, belonged to the first group. Inde- 
pendence being won they were now more interested in an orderly re- 
construction of the political and economic edifice than in a politico- 
social rebirth of the country. This was an immediate and pressing 
need if the fruits of victory were to be po Not only was there 
imperative demand for practical attentién to after-the-war weaknesses 


48 TwrnTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


of the individual state, but to the bond of union between the states, 
which indeed had proved barely strong enough to carry them through 
their common danger. 

Hence to informed and practical men like Davie first attention after 
the Revolution was due to the wounds made by the war; then to put- 
ting the new state government in harmony with sound political prac- 
ticee—practice approved by sound political precedent; and, thirdly, to 
_ strengthening the bond between the states. 

But the state had emerged from the Revolution under the control of 
the popular or democratic party, the party swayed by popular passion 
and inclined to illustrate sharp contrasts with the past. At the same 
time this party was characterized by an intense consciousness of the 
state’s individual sovereignty and an extreme disinterest in the common 
government, the Confederacy. This somewhat blatant democracy em- 
bodied in its membership most of the soldiers of the Revolution, many 
of their officers, the bulk of the state officials, and the mass of what 
Archibald Maclaine was fond of calling “the common people.” 


On the other hand the conservatives made up so small a minority 
that they may best be described as a coterie of educated men, mainly 
lawyers, who were well fitted for leadership and likely to acquire in- 
fluence and power as soon as the passions of the recent conflict began 
to cool. Among the best known names in this group were Samuel 
Johnston, Benjamin Hawkins, Richard Dobbs Spaight, James Iredell, 
Archibald Maclaine, John Steele, and William R. Davie. But in the 
years immediately succeeding independence they were able only to exer- 
cise a moderating and restraining influence in state affairs. Most of 
them found places in the legislature and there, by sheer virtue of talent, 
often turned the majority aside from ultra-radical action. Their oppor- 
tunity for control, however, was continually delayed. It promised to 
appear when, in 1786, it was proposed to strengthen the union by amend- 
ing the articles of Confederation. This proposal found ready acceptance 
by them in that they had consistently held that the welfare of North 
Carolina was indissolubly linked with her sister states. It would, if 
achieved, bring about national and international respectability, a re- 
sult that independence did not alone assure. Moreover it would doubt- 
less correct various evils from which the country at large or the states 
individually suffered. Lastly, to the conservative the movement seemed 
to promise an opportunity for public service and public honors, in state 
and nation, to those who advanced it. 

Interested alike in all these results the conservatives threw them- 
selves with zeal and skill into the work of creating sentiment for amend- 


Strate Lirerary anp Historicant Association 49 


ment of the articles. Davie, who had enjoyed a continuous service in 
the lower house as borough member from Halifax, had insisted upon 
and procured the appointment of delegates to the Annapolis Conven- 
tion in 1786. In 1787 he was equally insistent upon a commission to 
Philadelphia. This the majority granted, though apparently out of def- 
erence to the invitation and the urging of the conservatives. The pre- 
amble of the act of appointment embodied the sentiments of the con- 
servatives and bore the unmistakable stamp of Davie. 

Nevertheless three of the commission, as elected, were of the domi- 
nant democracy, Willie Jones, the unrivaled leader of his party, among 
them. Jones was a particularist of extreme type, who, long in control 
of the majority party, had confirmed it in the view that North Carolina 
was its chief and practically only concern. Though he did not oppose 
sending delegates to Philadelphia, political consistency bade him refuse 
the appointment. Richard Caswell, the governor, burdened with heavy 
responsibilities at home, also declined, and being empowered by law 
to fill the vacancies, named two friends of the movement, in which his 
own sympathies were strongly enlisted. Hence the delegation as finally 
made up consisted of one democrat, Alexander Martin, and four con- 
servatives, William R. Davie, Richard Spaight, Hugh Williamson, and _ 
William Blount. a 

Of Davie’s activity in the Philadelphia Convention we have, of course, 
no complete record, but sufficient to show that his weight was thrown 
on the side of the large state-group which proposed that representation 
in the national legislature should be on the basis of population instead 
of an equality among the states. Nevertheless he came to indorse the 
compromise of equality in the senate and proportional representation 
m the house. Further, he strongly opposed counting out the slave pop- 
ulation of the South in making up federal numbers, and finally put 
the convention on notice that the South would not federate unless at 
least three-fifths of the slaves were counted. 

Davie returned to North Carolina to meet pressing engagements just 
before the convention adjourned. Nevertheless he lost no time in mar- 
shaling the sentiment of the other North Carolina conservatives for 
the new document. These now became an active working corps for its 
adoption, while the democrats looked on interested but questioning. 

Even before the convention at Philadelphia had finished its labors 
the most far-sighted of the conservatives began to plan the election of 
a state governor in harmony with their views on the matter of ratifica- 
tion. They now began to call themselves federal men, and soon there- 

4 


50 TwentTierH ANNUAL SESSION 


after, Federalists. By assiduous correspondence and personal exertions 
practical organization was effected, the old conservatives to a man rally- 
ing to the new and fortunate issue. Control of the legislature must 
be the first objective, since the legislature elected the governor, and 
would be called wpon to grant a state convention to pass upon the new 
constitution. Every prominent conservative in the state became a can- 
didate for one or the other branches of the legislature. Intense interest 
was awakened as the fight became fast and furious, and much bitterness 
was engendered in many localities. The federal leaders took as their 
common theme the weakness of the old Confederation and, its corollary, 
the need of a firmer principle of union. Nevertheless it was clear, as 
the campaign developed, that they were forcing the fighting on the new 
ground as a means of gaining state supremacy, while the democrats, 
thrown upon the defensive, were struggling not so much to assure rejec- 
tion of the constitution in advance as to maintain their control. Nor, 
despite the campaign declaration of the federal men, did democratic 
victory imply that the new frame of government, when submitted, 
would not be accorded due consideration. 

The campaign was of considerable educative value and accentuated 
interest in larger affairs than the average North Carolinian had been 
wont to concern himself. Though the federalists had made a notable 
effort, and had attracted numerous recruits to their ranks, they failed 
to wrest control from the party in power. The democrats were easily 
able to organize both branches of the assembly when the body convened. 
Archibald Maclaine, beaten in New Hanover, had to solace himself 
with the reflection that ‘the asembly contained some men of sense who 
would endeavor to do what was necessary.’ Davie had easily secured 
his seat and appeared in the lower house as the ranking federalist 
member, Just from the scene of the constitution making at Philadel- 
phia he was prepared to exercise an even greater influence than usual 
upon the actions of the assembly. 

Now occurred in the legislature a most interesting inconsistency in 
political history. The democrats, after a most heated campaign, and 
now in full control of both branches, for the nonce held partisanship 
in abeyance, and on joint ballot chose Samuel J ohnston governor de- 
spite his known opposition to the bulk of principles for which the 
majority stood. The explanation lies in Johnston’s character, in Davie’s 
political generalship, and in the nature of the questions which now 
confronted the state. Johnston was perhaps the best known federalist 
in North Carolina. As a most influential member in the revolutionary 
Provincial Council he was a potent force in the government of North 


Srarre Lirzrary AND HisroricaL AssocIATION 51 


Carolina between the abdication of Josiah Martin, the last royal governor, 
and the accession of Richard Caswell under the state constitution. He 
served the state wisely and well during this critical period and would 
undoubtedly have become the first governor under the constitution had 
not Caswell’s military achievements suddenly brought the latter into 
‘prominence as a desirable war-time executive. Though trusted by the 
whole state for his wisdom, probity, and patriotism Johnston was well 
known to be far from democratic either in personal practice or political 
theory. This explains his exclusion from political preferment since the 
Revolution, save three years in the Congress of the Confederation. 
Equally conversant with State and confederation affairs he was regarded 
as the man of ripest mind in the State. The democracy, confronted now 
with the necessity, even against its will, of fixing attention on Confedera- 
tion affairs, began to have a sense of need of Johnston’s wisdom. 

With the executive office accorded to Johnston by grace, the demo- 
cratic majority, also by grace, ordered the election of a state convention 
to consider the new plan of government which had been evolved by the 
Philadelphia Convention. The election of this convention aroused even 
greater popular interest than had that of the preceding assembly. Davie 
and James Iredell led the federalistic forces, the former clearly demon- 
strating the fact that he was the most eloquent constitutional advocate 
in the State. Together the two, at their own expense, issued a pamphlet 
in analysis of the constitution that takes rank with the ablest of the 
“Federalist Papers” of Madison, Jay, and Hamilton. 

The election of convention delegates resulted in the choice of the ablest 
men of both parties, this being made possible by the fact of the old 
English practice that any freeholder might be chosen by any county or 
borough town whether he was a resident of the same or of some other. 
Too, there was an appreciation of ability and character very generally 
prevalent in North Carolina during the first four decades after inde- 
pendence, that made it possible and not infrequent for a constituency 
to confer public honors out of deference to those qualities, even though 
the recipient’s political views may not have accorded with those of the 
electors so honoring him. 

When the balloting had closed it was soon ascertained that the federal- 
ists had secured only a respectable minority of the seats in the conven- 
tion. Nevertheless their leaders continued to hope that when the body 
met it would ratify. In this they relied wpon the weight of the ten 
states that had already ratified. This was one more than was sufficient 
to secure the new union and the abandonment of the old Confederation. 
And among the ten was Virginia, whose influence was especially potent 


52 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


in the Roanoke and Albemarle regions of North Carolina, regions which 
at that time were the most populous, the wealthiest, and therefore the 
most influential portion of the state. Davie wrote from Halifax in 
June: “The decision of Virginia has altered the tone of the Antis here 
very much.” But, he further states: “Mr. Jones says his object will 
now be to get the constitution rejected in order to give weight to the 
proposed amendments, and talks in high commendation of those made 
by Virginia.” 

When the convention met, July 21, Jones proved to be firm in this 
purpose. He had kept his party’s front quite unbroken, and so adroit 
was his one-man-leadership that he was in position to absolutely dictate 
the action of the convention. Nevertheless Governor Johnson, out of 
deference to his office and public character, was chosen by unanimous 
vote to preside. Davie and James Iredell bore the chief responsibility 
for advocacy of ratification. There was not a peer of either of them 
in the opposition camp. Virtual admission of this by the democrats 
was shown in their declination to enter into debate. They were content 
to leave the issue to the test of ballots rather than arguments. Thus for 
some days the federalist leaders stood forth to analyze the constitution, 
to show the benefits to accrue from its operation, and to point out the 
ills of the old order. Sensing the chief ground of fear of the democrats 
to be an over-strong central authority Davie continually emphasized 
the point that the new constitution was, in nature, a compact between 
the states, and the government to be set up under it, their agent. Spaight 
also reiterated this view. Nor does their theory seem to have been as- 
sumed to lull the suspicions of the opposition. Both had been members 
of the Philadelphia Convention and presumably knew the spirit in which 
the document was drawn. 

Non-adoption, however, was predetermined. Jones finally embodied 
this decision in a resolution which likewise asserted the necessity for a 
bill of rights and suggested the call of a second federal convention. 
To the resolution was appended a declaration of rights similar to that 
in the state constitution, together with a list of twenty-six amendments 
very similar to those suggested by Virginia. The resolution was carried 
by a vote of 184 to 84 and a motion by a federalist to substitute a rati- 
fying resolution was defeated by the same vote reversed; upon which 
the convention adjourned. New York ratified soon after, thus leaving 
only North Carolina and Rhode Island outside the federal pale. 

Public opinion now began to veer around. Even the redoubtable 
Willie Jones weakened in his stand, as appears from his disinterest 
in the succeeding assembly elections. Nor did Davie appear in the 


Srate Literary anpD HisroricaL AssocIATION 53 


November assembly, but remained outside struggling to create sentiment 
to force a new convention from it. This result was achieved, but the 
democrats were able to defer its meeting until six months after the new 
federal government had been organized. 

Davie was a member of this second convention and the proponent of the 
motion which ratified the constitution, November 21, 1789, thus bringing 
to a successful conclusion the issue in which his sympathies were so ar- 
dently enlisted. 

By virtue of his service to the federalist cause Davie was now logically 
in line for federal honors, either at the hands of the people or by federal 
appointment. But in keeping with his ideas of disinterested service he 
put aside the urging of his friends to stand for a seat in congress, as 
well as the offer of a district judgeship by President Washington, and 
turned with redoubled energy to the task of stimulating North Caro- 
linians to a more progressive citizenship. In this he, almost alone 
among North Carolinians of his time, sensed the fundamental need of 
the inchoate democracy rising in America. In the new Republic, the 
new state, and the new order of society which they portended, he realized 
before other men of the South that the quality of the mass intelligence 
must be raised. This only would assure a fitting use of the great oppor- 
tunities which lay ahead. 

The state legislature became his fulcrum, and sopike the next decade, 
and despite opposition party control, he prodded it toward the goal he 
had in mind. Thus he wrested from a reluctant legislature the creation 
of the State University. Then by personal supervision he saw to its 
erection, its opening, and guided its early years of operation. At the 
same time he was the chief patron and advocate of the few academies in 
the State. He procured the statute under which the state laws were re- 
vised and brought into intelligent co-ordination. It was through his 
activity largely that the state was brought to cede its western area to 
the federal government. He headed three successive commissions to 
settle boundary disputes with neighbor states. He sought earnestly to 
commit the state to a system of internal improvements. He found time 
from his ever-growing law practice to set an example upon his own estate 
at Halifax of the most advanced agricultural methods. 

In matters affecting the federal union during this decade Davie was 
keenly sensitive to every influence that threatened to weaken its stability. 
Tt was this fear for the union that led him to regard Hamilton’s: as- 
sumption measures as too strong for the infant resources of the republic. 
It was the same influence that caused his endorsement of Justice Ive- © 
dell’s state-rights view in the Chisholm-Georgia case in 1794, an opinion 


54. TweEntTietH ANNUAL SESSION 


which the most orthodox Federalist ultimately conceded to be sound. 
This opinion was soon thereafter embodied in the eleventh amendment 
to the constitution, thus precluding the possibility of a citizen suing a 
state. On the Jay Treaty Controversy in 1795 Davie was more in- 
terested in the safety of the federal principle than in the nature of the 
treaty. 


“The present Crisis,” he writes to Justice Iredell, “appears to. me to be 
the most delicate and important since the organization of the government. 
The Anti-federalists and the personal enemies of the administration have 
rallied with astonishing rapidity . . . . I believe they will now make 
their last effort to shake the government.” 


Federalism as a set of party principles failed to develop strength in 
North Carolina during this decade, nor had Davie made this a chief 
concern in any of his tasks. The state remained under the control of 
the democracy, now beginning to call itself the Republican party and 
recognizing Jefferson as its national chief. It remained to be seen what 
would be the result, both wpon state politics and upon Davie, should 
circumstances arise to threaten the principle of union to a graver degree 
than any heretofore. 

This threat came in 1798 when the country was on the eve of war 
with France over the “X. Y. Z.” incident and accumulated grievances. 
The Republican party, under Jefferson’s inspiration, eagerly seized 
upon the Federalist measures, the Alien and Sedition Acts, as grounds 
for a strong partisan offensive against the administration of John 
Adams. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were the weapons of 
attack. ‘To Davie they seemed utterly subversive of the principle of 
union and served as a sharp challenge to him and other North Caro- 
lina Federalists to win state control. Thus they would assure its sup- 
port of the national honor in war and the integrity of the union in 
peace. To this end they were aided by the swiftly rising tide of 
national patriotism before an external danger. Davie and his lieuten- 
ants conducted an intensive campaign for mastery in the legislature. 
They secured a strong predominance in the senate and likewise a 
majority, though a small and waning one in the lower house. Davie 
was elected governor on joint ballot, beng at the same time member of 
the lower house, though devoting most of his time to preparation of 
the state troops for war—for which purpose he had ‘been appointed by 
President Adams a brigadier-general. He was to take his seat as govern- 
or on January 1, 1799. 

In the meantime the then Republican Governor, Samuel Ashe, sub- 
mitted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions to the assembly in defer- 


Srate Lirerary anp Historicat AssociaTIoN 55 


ence to the requests of the governors of those states. They were treated 
with great contempt by the senate; but the lower house passed a resolve 
to instruct the state’s senators and request its representatives to move 
in congress for repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts. This resolve the 
senate rejected by the decisive vote of 31 to 8. The lower house, by a 
secant majority, was convinced that repeal was the way out and in the 
bitterness aroused between the two houses over the “instruction question” 
cooperation on other questions was no longer possible. Hence when 
Davie was inaugurated he found a legislative deadlock on every Feder- 
alist measure. A bill to transfer the choice of presidential electors from 
the people to the legislature was firmly rejected by the lower house, even 
though the governor’s whole strength was exerted in its support. Davie 
seems to have regarded this measure not as a party expedient in antici- 
pation of continued Federalist control of the legislature, but as a wise 
and just protection against popular passion and over-hasty judgment. 


Davie, in his official and private capacity alike, held the threat of 
disunion contained in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to be a 
graver danger than the war with France and so wrote Iredell in 
June, 1799. But his party’s position was based on the war scare, and 
when Adams suddenly veered round and appointed a second commission 
to France he sealed the doom of Federalism in North Carolina as well 
as in the nation. The President tendered Davie an appointment on 
the Commission after a declination by Patrick Henry, but in his accept- 
ance Davie suffered no illusions as to its wisdom or its chances for 
success. Just before sailing he wrote Iredell, “The appointment of 
Envoy is highly honorable to me and, under any other circumstances 
would have been certainly agreeable; but the unknown and ever- 
varying situation of the Government to which we are accredited, its 
strange, unparalleled character and unsettled policy, furnish no data 
upon which we can caleulate the issue of our mission, and must cast the 
reputation of those concerned in it entirely upon chance.” The mis- 
sion, together with the First Consul’s temporary change of French policy 
toward America, averted war, but at the price of disruption of the 
Federalist party. - 

In North Carolina it removed Davie from the governorship at the 
most critical moment in Federalist fortunes. We was now by far the 
most influential Federalist in the state and had he remained at his post 
would doubtless have been retained for the constitutional three con- 
secutive terms. But upon his acceptance of the French mission his 
followers fell into panic and the Republicans of the lower house were 
able on joint ballot to force the election of a Republican successor. 


56 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


Davie returned in January, 1801, to find his party shattered in state 
and nation and a contested election between Jefferson and Burr in the 
House of Representatives. To John Steele he wrote, February 2, 1801: 


“The Federalists (i. e. in North Carolina) own the destruction of the 
constitution as an event almost certain under the administration of Mr. 
Jefferson; and as to the administration of Mr. Burr, although it may be 
energetic, no man knows what course it may take. I have been visited by 
a great number of the most influential and enlightened friends of govern- 
ment in this part of the country since my return and they all express 
insuperable repugnance to the election of Burr, urging his want of char- 
acter, etc.” 


When the contest had been decided in Jefferson’s favor and the 
Republican administration launched, Davie took the lead in North Caro- 
lina in'an effort to rehabilitate his party’s fortunes. Under his guid- 
ance a newspaper, the “Minerva” was set up at Raleigh to serve as the 
party organ. Its end was to be 


“the noble object of suppressing falsehood and disseminating truth, of 
subverting the wild and visionary projects and opinions of Democracy and 
advocating in their place sound, substantial, and practical principles of 
Federalism.” 


In 1803, at the earnest solicitation of his party men, he reluctantly 
stood for the seat of his district in congress. Finding many of the mod- 
erate Republicans in his support, and fearing misundertanding on their 
part, Davie issued a circular that they might know what to expect of 
him. It ran: 


“J desire that it may be clearly understood that I never have and that I 
never will surrender my principles to the opinions of any man, or description 
of men, either in or out of power; and that I wish no man to vote for me 
who is unwilling to leave me free to pursue the good of my country accord-- 
ing to the best of my judgment, without respect either to party men or 
party views.” 


This theory of public service is, of course, in contravention to that 
which has been accepted as the basis of representative government in 
America. But I venture to suggest that it is not yet proven that better 
results might not be achieved if Davie’s principle was practice. Never- 
theless it defeated Davie, and he wa’ content that it should be so, unless 
his countrymen could rise to its acceptance. 

The chief reason for Davie’s fear of misunderstanding was that he 
had been made the object of the astute Jefferson’s wooing through the 
federal patronage. As early as 1801 he had been tendered a commission- 


Srate Lirerary anp Historicat Association 57 


ership to treat with the southwestern Indians, which he declined. In 
1802 he had accepted a commission to treat with the remnant of the 
Tusearoras in North Carolina; but this was as much a state service as 
national. He never for a moment regarded himself as committed to any 
support of the Republican party, but remained its harsh critic. Vehe- 
mently he condemned the repeal of “Mid-night Judiciary Act,” and ex- 
pressed the view that soon there would be no other than the Lilliputian 
ties of the public debt to hold the states together. 


In 1805 he retired to a valuable estate he owned in South Carolina, 
but kept up a continuous correspondence with his old Federalist friends 
in North Carolina. Never softening toward Jefferson, he nevertheless 
had hopes of Madison, due likely to the position in which Madison had 
stood at the formation of the Union. In 1810, while the country was 
still smarting under the effects of the embargo policy inherited from 
Jefferson’s term, he wrote: 


“T sincerely believe he (President Madison) is a man of great virtue. 
We all know he has sense and the experience of many years in public life, 
and they now say he has more promptitude and decision than any man who 
ever filled the presidential chair. May God grant that this may be true! 
Our affairs may yet do well.” 


Nevertheless when Madison’s administration in 1812 drifted into war 
with England and the discontent of the New England states had cul- 
minated in the Hartford Convention, Davie wrote: 


“The movement in the New England states and the monstrous strides 
toward despotism made by the party in power have so stunned and astounded 
me that I know not what to say or write. It really appears to me that the 
present confederacy will not last two years more and that Mr. Madison will 
finish his career amidst the ruins of his country.” 


The federalism of William Richardson Davie was summed up in a 
passionate regard for the unity and welfare of America. 


An Eighteenth Century Circuit Rider 


By FRANK NASH cK 


Assistant Attorney General of North Carolina 


He was not one of those who at that period were bearing the evangel 
of mercy out into the bye-ways of life as well as into its highways, to 
the pioneer on the frontiers as well as to the villager in his store or 
workshop. Instead, he was a minister of justice and a sturdy but dis- 
criminating apostle of nationalism. He was born at Lewes, Sussex 
County, England, October 5th, 1751, came to Edenton in the Province 
of North Carolina in 1768, was a practicing attorney when he was nine- 
teen years of age, married when he was twenty-two, a state judge when 
he was twenty-six, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 
before he was thirty-nine, and died when he was a few days over forty- 
eight. 

Today Judge James Iredell is everywhere recognized as one of our 
great statesmen-jurists. ‘President Washington had no personal ac- 
quaintance with him, but had read his reply to George Mason and his 
speeches in the Hillsboro Convention of 1788, and was much impressed 
by the weight and force of his argument in favor of the ratification of 
the new constitution. When then there was a vacancy on the new 
Supreme Court bench, caused by the declination of Mr. R. H. Harrison 
of Maryland, the President sent Iredell’s name to the Senate on Feb- 
ruary 10, 1790 and it was immediately and unanimously confirmed. 
He had no previous knowledge of the president’s intention, indeed had 
been considering applying for appointment as district judge of North 
Carolina. 

The United States Supreme Court as then organized, consisted of six 
justices, a chief justice, and five associates. It was to convene twice a 
year at the seat of government to hear appeals from the circuit courts. 
The circuit courts were composed of three judges, any two of whom were 
to constitute a quorum ;—a district judge, one of whom was appointed 
for each state, and two supreme court justices. There were three cir- 
cuits constituted: Eastern—New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut and New York, with Rhode Island and Vermont to be added later; 
Middle—New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia ; 
Southern—South Carolina, and Georgia, with North Carolina to be 
added. The act required two justices of the Supreme Court to hold 
circuit courts in conjunction with the local district judge in each one 


Sratp Literary anp HisroricaL ASSOCIATION 59 


of these circuits twice a year. Any two of these, however, would con- 
stitute a quorum for holding the court. The salary fixed by the act for 
justices of the Supreme Court was $3,500 per year, with no allowance 
for expenses. 


In this paper I am to try to depict some of the experiences of this 
great judge as he travelled about the country in performance of circuit 
court duties. In order that I may present to you some idea of his 
weightier duties understandingly, it is necessary that I should state in 
a general way the political situation in the country at that time. The 
Federal constitution had not been adopted without vigorous, almost 
savage, opposition by a large minority of the more prominent public 
men. To use a term coined recently in the political life of this country, 
there were many bitter-enders among these opponents. Indeed it may 
well be doubted whether or not the constitution would have been adopted 
at all if it had been submitted to a popular vote. This condition ap- 
pealed very strongly to the statesman in Judge Iredell, so to him the 
constitution must be popularized not only by a wise administration of 
the laws enacted by congress in pursuance thereof, but also by a constant 
reiteration in his charges of its fundamental principles. The French 
Revolution had already broken out, and was to run its bloody course 
while he was on the bench. The country even at that period was filled 
with sympathizers with that revolution and a little later with propa- 
gandists of its peculiar tenets. President Washington’s policy was one 
of strict neutrality. It became his duty then to enforce the laws of 
congress which were enacted to secure this neutrality. Congress also 
found it necessary to impose an excise tax on whiskey. This resulted 
in a furor of excitement in some sections of the country, culminating in 
the Whiskey Insurrection of Western Pennsylvania. Iredell presided 
over the trial of some of the insurgents. With the country in such a 
state, the duties of the circuit judges at that period were not only 
arduous in themselves, but also unpopular in some communities. Judge 
Tredell was peculiarly fitted for these duties at such a time. He had 
the manners and graces of the gentleman in the truest sense of the 
term. He was singularly kind-hearted and thoughtful of the feelings 
and interests of others. In social life he attracted both men and women 
and enjoyed life and association with his fellows. As a judge, he very 
soon extorted the admiration of the lawyers who practised before him, 
and made friends for himself and his cause wherever he held courts. 

To Judge Rutledge of South Carolina and him was assigned the duty 
of holding the spring courts, 1790, of the Southern Circuit. He seems 
in traveling long distances of his first circuit to have availed himself 


€0 TweEnTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


of stage-coaches, entering South Carolina in a stage which ran from Fay- 
etteville to some point in that state. He is first heard from at Camden, 
being then on his way to Columbia at which the court was to sit. He 
had company all the way from Fayetteville to ten miles of Camden. He 
found his journey a thousand times more agreeable than he had ex- 
pected. Of Camden he says, “This really is a very pretty town—a fine, 
high, healthy situation—and many very handsome houses in it.” From 
Fayetteville to Camden he was astonished at the immense quantity 
of barren land. He arrived in Columbia on May 11th, spent about a 
week there, and went on to Charleston where he arrived on May 22nd. 
Judge Rutledge met him at Columbia, sat with him in the court, but I 
have no information as to the character of the business done. At Colum- 
bia he met most of the principal characters of the country who all be- 
haved to him with extreme kindness. He went from Columbia direct to 
Charleston in Judge Rutledge’s coach and accompanied by him, and 
was taken as a guest to his house in Charleston. In this delightful home 
he spent only a few days. 


“They have a remarkably fine family of eight children; the eldest married 
to a Mr. Kinlock, a very agreeable young gentleman of large fortune, whom 
I saw at Columbia. Next is a son, who I believe is a very promising one in- 
deed, who has been travelling in Europe for near three years and whom his 
father and mother expect to meet this summer at New York. A younger 
daughter is with her sister Mrs. Kinlock. The other five are sons now at 
home receiving education under an excellent private tutor. . . . . This 
city far exceeds my expectations. To-day I had the pleasure of attending 
a very handsome church, hearing as good a sermon as ever Crutchley 
preached, and I believe as well delivered; and also a very fine organ which 
was extremely agreeable.” 


In Charleston it is probable that nothing more was done than to 
organize the court, for on May 28th in company with Judge Rutledge 
he arrived at Savannah. He was very much impressed with the beauty 
and fineness of the road from Charleston to a plantation of Judge Rut- 
ledge’s about twenty-five miles from the latter place. The latter part 
of the journey was made in a canoe paddled by four of Judge Rut- 
ledge’s hands. He returned probably by the same route to North 
Carolina expecting that by that time North Carolina would have been 
included in the Southern Circuit by congress. On his appointment as 
judge he had removed his family from Edenton, North Carolina, to 
63 Wall Street, New York City, where he arrived the latter part of 
July. He sums up his experiences on his first circuit thus: 


“Had the weather not been so hot, my circuit would have been quite a 
jaunt of pleasure, for I have been everywhere received by everybody with the 


Srare Lirerary anp Historica AssocraTIon 61 


utmost kindness and distinction, and by many of the first families in South 
Carolina with a degree of unaffected politeness which was gratifying indeed.” 


The August term of the Supreme Court convened in New York, but 
having no business after Judge Iredell’s commission was read, ad- 
journed sine die. On July 10th congress passed an act fixing the seat 
of goverment at a point on the Potomac where the city of Washingon is 
now located. The government itself was not to remove to the new city 
until December 1800. Meantime its seat was to be fixed at Phila- 
delphia. 

The Southern Circuit was assigned to Judges Rutledge and Iredell 
for the fall of 1790. The latter commenced his journey south in Sep- 
tember, in the public stage, breakfasting at Elizabeth Town, dining 
at Brunswick, “a pretty little town,” and arrived at Princeton some time 
before dark, fifty-one miles the day’s journey. He described Prince- 
ton as a very pretty place, though in a high situation, level. At Eliza- 
beth Town, they picked up Gen. Thomas Mifflin, who had been one of 
the Conway Cabal, which sought the removal of Gen. Washington 
during the Revolutionary War. He was then President of the Executive 
Council of Pennsylvania. Judge Iredell found him a very agreeable 
travelling companion. The next day they arrived at Philadelphia 
about 2 P. M. 


“T have since dined with President Mifflin, our most agreeable fellow 
traveller, whose wine was so good and importunity so pressing that I could 
do nothing more since dinner but engage places in the Baltimore stage for 
Friday.” [He left Philadelphia on Friday, September 17 and arrived at Balti- 
more, about 4 P. M. of Saturday, the 18th.] “I had taken my passage, without 
knowing there were two stages, in one by mistake [He does not attribute 
this mistake to the excellence of Gen. Miffiin’s wine] by the eastern branch 
of the Chesapeake, so that we had to cross a ferry of 15 miles, but the wind 
was favorable, and upon the whole my time passed pleasantly. My company 
consisted of a Mr. Sharpe, a wine merchant of Philadelphia, a cheerful, 
clever man, with a modest, engaging young lady of Baltimore, who had been 
at a boarding school at Philadelphia, and a very decent seafaring man. 
Baltimore is a prettier place and more regularly built than I had expected 
to find it. There is a beautiful view from some parts of the town, but the 
finest country I have yet seen is Pennsylvania.” 


He attended church services in Baltimore that Sunday and heard 
a good organ, but a bad preacher. We know nothing further of his trip, 
until he arrived at Fayetteville, N. C., October 7th. His own horses and 
vehicle had probably met him at Suffolk, Virginia, and he made the rest 
of his journey, certainly through North Carolina, with them. He 
spent a whole day in Fayetteville to rest himself and to have his horses 


62 TwentietH ANNUAL SESSION 


shod. He kept the court open at Augusta, Georgia, for five days, 
awaiting the arrival of either Judge Rutledge or Judge Pendleton (the 
district Judge) to make a quorum to transact business. Judge Rut- 
ledge arrived on the 20th, but as they were both back in Charleston on 
the 23rd, it is supposed that there was little business transacted in Au- 
gusta. During his stay at Charleston, he was dined and wined daily, 
attended a ball, danced with the beautiful Mrs. Kinlock, oldest daugh- 
ter of Judge Rutledge, and was not in bed until 2 A. M. 


When the seat of government was removed from New York to Phil- 
adelphia, Judge Iredell found it advisable to remove his family also 
to that city. 


Chief Justice Jay contended that the act of Congress which re- 
quired the Supreme Court Justices to attend the circuit courts, was 
unconstitutional. Carson in his history of the Supreme Court, says 
that John Marshall concurred in this opinion of Jay’s and did what 
he could reasonably to prevent the decision in Stuart vs. Laird, 
Cranch 703, which held that the opposite construction had been so 
long acquiesced in that it had become a rule of law. 


At the August Term 1791 of the Court, a difference arose among 
the judges as to their circuits. The Act of Congress did not specifically 
fix the method, but seemed to leave it to the judges themselves. Car- 
son thus states the result: . 


“Contrary to the expectation and wishes of the southern members of th~ 
Court, it was determined that the judges should be divided into pairs, 
and each pair be confined permanently to one circuit. Iredell, it seems, 
was taken by surprise, and Blair voted under a misconception. The burden 
of ‘leading the life of a Postboy,’ in a circuit of vast extent, under great 
difficulties of travel and peril of life in the sickly seasons, fell heavily upon 
Iredell, who applied to Congress for relief, but it was not until the Act of 
April 13th, 1792, providing that the judges should ride by turns the circuit 
most distant from the seat of government, that the difficulty was adjusted.” 


The Southern Cireuit could be faithfully attended only by riding 
1800 or 1900 miles, in perils of waters, and in weariness and pain- 
fulness. Judge Blair, however, as a matter of kindness to Judge Iredell 
rode the Southern Circuit in Spring of 1791, while Iredell with Judge 
Wilson rode the Middle Circuit. His correspondence covering this 
period seems to have been lost. While at Annapolis in riding the Mid- 
dle Circuit, May 1791, he dined with Charles Carroll of Carrolton, 
whom he calls “the great Carroll.” On his way to the Southern Cir- 
cuit in the fall of that year, he stopped at a house in Virginia, and 
was put near a room where some young fellows were drinking, gaming, 


Strate Lirerary anD Historica AssocraTIon 63 


and swearing all night. When he arrived at Salisbury in this state, 
he was forced to sleep in a room with five others, and in a bed with 
a fellow of the wrong sort. On his return trip, on his way from Wil- 
mington to New Bern, his portmanteau was stolen from behind his 
carriage, and was found soon after on the road, rifled of much fine 
raiment. He rode the Southern Circuit again in the Spring of 1792. 
He went by sea to Charleston having in company Senator Butler | 
of South Carolina and that gentleman’s daughters. At Charleston 
he again experienced the delightful hospitality of its best citizens. 
On April 8th he writes his wife from that place: 


“T have bought a pair of horses, and, agreeable to your wishes, not 
showy,—for they are confoundedly ugly. The price is $172.00. I may per- 
haps sell them for plow horses in North Carolina.” 


While in Charleston, too, he heard an excellent sermon from a Tory 
parson, who had been banished, and was preaching his first sermon 
since his return. He seems to have left Charleston for Savannah on 
Thursday, April 23, driving his new horses, attached to a chair, a 
two wheeled vehicle with shafts for a single horse, corresponding to 


our gig. 


“Having understood that the horse in the chair was very gentle, and the 
road being a remarkably fine one, I was going on at my ease, when part 
of the rein getting under his tail, he ran away, the chair struck against a 
tree and overset, throwing me out, and one of the wheels went over my leg. 
I was able to proceed however (as the chair was not broken) about ten 
miles, but then was so much in pain, I was under the necessity of staying 
very inconveniently at a house on the road.” 


He met at Judge Bee’s a very respectable, agreeable old gentleman, 
and, through his means, he stopped at genteel houses the rest of the 
way, where he lived elegantly and was treated with as much kindness 
as he could have experienced at Charleston. This old gentleman’s 
name was Brailsford, and he may have been a suitor in the circuit court 
at a previous term. If so, he was a party to the first cause of note 
argued in the Supreme Court—1. U. S. (Curtis) page 4. Judge Ire - 
dell delivered his charge to the grand jury at Savannah on Monday, 
April 26, and this so pleased that body that they requested him to 
have it published. In that charge he states in a general but clear way 
his own conception of the dual form of government arising from the 
adoption of the Constitution: 


“The happiness of our country certainly depends, not only on the preser- 
vation of our State governments in their due sphere of authority, but in the 


64 TwerntirtH ANNUAL SESSION 


firm union of the whole for the great purposes of the common welfare of 
the whole, which fatal experience has long since told us cannot be secured 
without an energetic government to effect it.” 


He found a great deal of important business. He seems though 
to have disposed of it in a week, for he set out for Augusta on Sunday 
May 2nd, with the marshal of the district, and arrived there Tues- 
day evening. He spent a week there, resting himself and horses very 
pleasantly at the house of the marshal. He found the town one of 
the most beautiful in America, and the weather cool enough for 
blankets at night. He left Augusta on the 11th of May and arrived at 
Columbia very early the morning of the 14th. At that place he 
finished the whole business of the court in one day. He says: 


“T, everywhere, meet with great distinction and kindness, and have great 
reason to rejoice that I came southward: for otherwise the judiciary of the 
United States would have been greatly disgraced.” 


He, in company with Judge Wilson, rode the Eastern Circuit in the 
fall of 1792. They left New York by stage, between three and four 
o’clock Friday morning September 21st, and had not ridden many miles 
before it was discovered that the trunks of both of the judges had been 
lost off the stage. The unluck of commencing their journey on Friday 
did not pursue them far, for on going back for them, the trunks were 
recovered after two hours delay, an honest boy having picked them up 
and put them in a place of safety. They arrived at New Haven Sat- 
urday night. For the sin of travelling on Sunday they tried to atone 
by stopping along the road to attend a service. It proved to be a - 
penance really, for the preacher was dull and the congregation 
not genteel. He was very much impressed with the beauty of the 
wountry. The roads, though, in many places were execrable; the worst 
Maryland roads a bowling green to them. There was much business 
at Hartford, where they arrived Sunday afternoon. Judge Iredell did 
not find Hartford so delightful as New Haven and other towns in Con- 
necticut through which he had passed. 

On March 23, 1792, Congress had passed an Act providing for the 
settlement of claims of widows and orphans of soldiers of the Revolu- 
tion and to regulate the claims of invalid pensioners, and had imposed 
upon the circuit court certain duties in relation thereto, and subjected 
the action of the courts to the supervision of the Secretary of War, 
and finally to the revision of Congress. Some of the judges refused 
outright to obey Congress, while others temporized by acting as com- 
missioners out of court in carrying out the purposes of the Act. Of 


Strate Lirrerary anp Historica AssocraTIon 65 


this number was Judge Iredell who at Hartford did all of this work, 
Judge Wilson positively declining to take any part in it. In less than 
a year Congress, recognizing the strength of the position assumed by 
the judges, imposed the duties upon an administrative body. On Octo- 
ber 4th he wrote his wife: 


“The Invalid business has scarcely allowed one moment’s time, and now I 
am engaged in it by candlelight, though to go-at three in the morning. I 
was at a ball the night before last, and staid until one. I danced a little, 
but it was not a remarkably agreeable one.” 


He arrived at Boston Saturday afternoon, October 6. Judge Wilson 
had returned to New York, so he was to hold the court there with the 
aid of Judge Lowell, the district judge. He was delighted with Boston, 
and was met most cordially and hospitably by its principal citizens, 
though there was a scourge of small-pox there and the town was still 
much afflicted. The Court was opened October 12, Judge Lowell, dis- 
trict judge, assisting. Judge Iredell’s charge to the grand jury “united 
elegance with extensive knowledge and liberality,” so was published 
in the Columbian Sentinel. There was much fatiguing work. One 
cause alone occupied almost the whole of the time for a week, and 
court did not adjourn until Saturday night. He was much impressed 
by the character and acquirements of the men whom he met, and at- 
tributed this largely to the public school system. 


“I am satisfied that so much regularity and decency do not exist in any 
other country in the world, as in Connecticut and Massacnusetts: and I 
suppose it is much the same in New Hampshire.” 


Judge Wilson joined him on the 20th, and they went together to Exe- 
ter, N. H. There seems to have been little business in New Hampshire. 
The only interesting incident of their trip was their visit to Theo- 
philus Parsons, subsequently a great Chief Justice of Massachusetts. 
Judge Iredell thought him the greatest lawyer he had met in America, 
and a very agreeable man. On his return to Boston he had the pleasure 
of dining with the Revolutionary patriots Samuel Adams and John 
Hancock, the latter then Governor of the state. At Providence, R. I. 
they found much business to do, but its character does not appear. 

At the February term 1793, of the Supreme Court, the cause of 
Chisholm vs. Georgia came on for argument. In this case Judge Ire- 
dell delivered the great dissenting opinion, which gave rise to the 11th 
Amendment. This, however, is beyond the scope of this article. He, 
with Chief Justice Jay, rode the Middle Circuit in the Spring of 1793. 


5 


66 TwentietH ANNUAL SxEssIon 


Judge Wilson, however, sat with him at the April Term of the Cireuit 
Court at Philadelphia, where Ravara, consul of Genoa, was tried for 
sending threatening letters to Mr. Haywood, the British Munister. 
The defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction of the court that the Consti- 
tution gave exclusive original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in 
cases concerning consuls of a foreign power, but the majority of the 
court, Wilson and Peters, Iredell dissenting, overruled this plea, hold- 
ing that the term of the Constitution, “original jurisdiction” did not 
prevent congress from conferring concurrent jurisdiction on the Cireuit 
Courts. The defendant was tried a year later in the same court, con- 
victed, and subsequently pardoned by the President, on condition that 
he surrendered his commission and exequatur. On May 5th Judge 
Iredell was in Baltimore after passing most execrable roads. There he 
met the Attorney General of the state, whom he rather curiously calls 
the famous anti-Federalist, Luther Martin. He was then, however, 
in the process of changing his point of view, and did so change it 
afterwards, as to be called by Jefferson, the Federalist bull dog. He 
did not find Baltimore as attractive as either Boston or Charleston. 
He met Genet, the French minister there. He describes him as a 
very handsome man, with a fine open countenance, and pleasing, un- 
affected manners. As is well known he is the man who attempted to 
go over the heads of the administration in an appeal to the people of 
the country. On May 17, Judge Jay having arrived, they set out 
for Annapolis, where Judge Iredell delivered the charge to the 
grand jury. This charge, as with all he delivered, contained a full 
and complete explication of the dual relations of state and Federal 
governments. The first of the month they were in Richmond where 
the great case of Ware vs. Hilton was argued before them, the counsel 
for the plaintiff being Wickham, Ronald, Baker and Starke, while 
those for the defendant were Henry, Marshall, Innis and Campbell. 
Judge Iredell said of Henry: 


“The great Patrick Henry is to speak today (May 27th). I never was 
more agreeably disappointed than in my acquaintance with him. I have 
been much in his company, and his manners are very pleasing, and his mind, 
I am persuaded, highly liberal.” 


Henry, commencing Monday, spoke for three consecutive days. On 
June 7th judgment was rendered for the defendant on his second 
plea, by Iredell and Griffin, Jay, C. J., dissenting. It being an action 
by a British creditor against an American debtor, on a bond executed 
before the war, the defendant pleaded that he had paid the full amount 
into the public treasury of the state of Virginia, under an Act of 


Sratze Lirrrary anp Hisrorican AssocrlaTION 67 


the Legislature which authorized it. Iredell in an elaborate opinion 
held this, having been done before the Treaty of ‘Peace, was a complete 
defence to the action. 'The Supreme Court reversed this, in Ware 
vs. Hilton 1 U. 8S. (Curtis) 164, Iredell adhering to his original 
opinion by filing that in the report of the case, p. 201. In this he said: 


“The cause has been spoken to at the bar with a degree of ability equal 
to any occasion. However painfully I may at any time reflect on the in- 
adequacy of my own talents, I shall, as long as I live, remember with 
pleasure and respect the arguments which I have heard on this case. They 
have discovered an ingenuity, a depth of investigation and a power of 
reasoning fully equal to anything I have ever witnessed, and some of them 
have been adorned with a splendor of eloquence surpassing what I have 
ever felt before. Fatigue has given way under its influence, and the heart 
has been warmed, while the understanding has been instructed.” 


There was another epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia the 
summer of 1793, and Iredell, preferring to endure the ills of malaria 
to those of small-pox in the winter and yellow fever in the summer in 
that city, he determined to remove his family to their old home in 
Edenton. This he did in the winter of 1793. 

He rode the Southern Circuit in the Spring of 1794. His charge 
to the Grand jury at Wake Court House, June 2, is largely filled with 
a discussion of the legal aspect of French interference with the internal 
affairs of the United States. He refused to ridé the same circuit in the 
Fall of that year, and probably did no circuit duty. 

He rode the Eastern Circuit in the Spring of 1795, opening the 
court in New York on Monday, April 6th. There was little business 
and it was disposed of in two days. In Philadelphia he hired a young 
mulatto named David. “I am to find him in everything and pay him 
four dollars per month.” He remained in New York two weeks 
after court adjourned, receiving very great civilities. He was in 
New Haven in time to open court on April 25th. He left that place 
on May 6th and arrived at Springfield, Massachusetts, seventy miles 
off on the morning of the 7th after travelling through a delightful 
country, passing several pretty towns, and enjoying most charming 
weather. 


“TI was” [said he] “certainly intended for a New England man. I admire 
the people and the country, as much as many of our Southern people affect to 
despise them.” 

“T found Mrs. Hancock just going to comfort herself for a slavish confine- 


ment for many years to a goutified, illtempered husband, by marrying a 
Captain Scott, an old captain in her former husband’s employ.” 


68 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


As Vermont had been added to the Eastern Circuit, he went 115 
miles from Springfield to Windsor, through a country which he found 
delightfully romantic. He was there for about a week, being shown 
many civilities by a small but genteel society. He was forced to re- 
turn to Boston to get to Portsmouth, N. H., where his next court was 
to be held, there being no stage across the mountains above. While 
en route and in Vermont, he had presented to him a little boy, three 
_years old named James Iredell, for himself. . No doubt the little fel- 
-low’s father had been indiscreet during the Revolution while in N. C. 
and Judge Iredell had protected him. Again in Boston, he experienced 
the delightful hospitality of the charming society there. 


He seems not to have ridden any circuit in the Fall of 1795, but 
in November went to Richmond in the place of one of the other judges 
and held the court there. He found a great deal of business there. 


“The town was so full that for three or four nights I was obliged to 
lodge in a room where there were three other beds.” 


In the Spring of 1796 he rode the Middle Circuit, commencing at 
Philadelphia, April 11th; but nothing of interest occurred. He was 
not on duty the fall of that year, but rode the Middle Cireuit again 
in the spring of 1797. He began his courts at Trenton March 29th, 
where he continued for a week. One case took up much of the time 
of the court. He says of this case: 


“T have but this minute come out of court, having sat there without 
moving for upwards of eleven hours.” 


He returned to Philadelphia April 5th and had a tedious waiting for 
the court to convene. He began hearing cases April 14, and contin- 
ued for a week, going from there to Annapolis, Baltimore, and Rich- 
mond. His charge at Richmond, though unexceptional on its face, 
provoked a reply from Mr. Cabell, a member of Congress, in which he 
assailed the character and motives of Judge Iredell. In a calm and 
temperate explanation, the judge showed that Mr. Cabell was not in his 
mind at the time the charge was prepared, concluding thus: 


“J defy him or any man to show that in the exercise of my judicial 
character, I have been ever influenced in the slightest degree by any man, 
either in or out of office, and I assure him I shall be as little influenced 


by this new mode of attack by a member of congress, as I can be by any 
other.” 


For taking any notice of Cabell’s attack, his brother-in-law, Gov. 
Johnston, afterwards administered a mild rebuke to him. He seems 


Strate Literary AnD HistoricaL ASSOCIATION 69 


not to have been on circuit duty the fall of 1797. In the Spring of 
1798 he rode the Southern Circuit. He set out from his home in 
Edenton, with his own chair and horses, accompanied by a negro man. 
He, after many trying adventures in flooded swamps, particularly 
Conetoe swamp in Edgecombe, found it impossible to cross Tar river 
at Tarboro, or to proceed in any other direction, so returned to Wil- 
liamston. The floods receding in a few days, he continued his journey. 
He writes on May Ist: 


“T was overtaken at the house where I staid last night by an itinerant 
Methodist preacher, who appears to be a very worthy good man, but ex- 


tremely weak. He, and hundreds more, are employed by the Society, to 
go constantly about preaching; they receive their traveling expenses and 


$64.00 a year to find them in every thing.” 


There was little business in Charleston. Court was in session only 
one week, but he experienced again the delightful hospitality of its prin- 
cipal citizens. He commenced his return home, the Savannah court 
having been abandoned on account of his delay by floods, on May 14th, © 
and, loitering on the way, at the country homes of friends, had not 
reached Camden four days later. 


Judge Iredell held the courts of the Middle Circuit, commencing 
at Philadelphia, April 11th. At this term the first trial of Fries oc- 
eurred. The trial began on April 29, and lasted through all its 
length, 15 days, (3rd Dallas 515). The hearing of evidence and argu- 
ments of counsel occupied nine days. Judge Iredell wrote that there 
was an immense number of witnesses, and long arguments, and the 
Court sat ten hours a day. 


“The jury went out at eight o’clock, and at their request we adjourned 
until ten. Though we were punctual to a moment, the court was so full 
we could hardly get to our seats. The Jury soon afterwards were announced, 
and after the clerk put the usual question, the foreman, after a most 
solemn pause, and in a very affecting tone of voice pronounced him guilty, 
which evidently had a sensible effect upon every person present.” 


The Court, however, set aside the verdict and granted a new trial, 
because one of the jurors, a man named Rhodes, had previous to his 
selection as juror expressed an opinion that the insurgents, and Fries 
particularly, were guilty of treason and should be hung. After the 
prolonged and arduous session at Philadelphia, he found at Richmond, 
June 4th, an immensity of business. Concluding the business of this 
court, he had only a few weeks at home when he commenced his return 
to be with the Supreme Court at Augusta session of that year. At 


70 TweENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


Richmond, July 31st, he was taken sick and was compelled to return 
home. He saw no more judicial service of any kind, but died at his 
home in Edenton, October 30, 1799. No doubt the arduous labors 
of the Circuits which he had been attending so faithfully, contri- 
buted to his early death. Says Mr. Carson: 


“Such was James Iredell of North Carolina, the study of whose works 
cannot fail to awaken admiration of his qualities as a judge, and his virtues 
as a man.” 


This mere glance at the labors of the judicial circuit rider of the 
eighteenth century gives us some conception of their arduous character. 
The mere fact of riding great distances over the roads of the period 
and in the stage coaches of the period, exposed to all varieties of cli- 
mate and weather, must have tried the constitution of the strongest 
man. Judge Iredell in his whole judicial career never shirked a duty. 
Instead, he sat in court hearing cases, where it was necessary, eleven 
hours at a stretch without taking nourishment or relaxation. Though 
he was a man of independent judgment, and so, quite frequently dis- 
sented from the views of his brothers on the bench, he was universally 
respected for his ability as a judge and his character as a man. To 
one, however, so even tempered, so kind-hearted, in short, so full of the 
charity which suffereth long and is kind, there were many compensa 
tions for his wearisome and sometimes dangerous journeys and his ardu- 
ous labor. In Philadelphia he was the welcome guest of President Wash- 
ington and his wife and later of President John Adams and the British 
minister. In New England he met and became the friend of Samuel 
Adams, John Hancock and Theophilus Parsons. In Virginia he came 
in pleasant association with Henry and Marshall and Wickham. In 
South Carolina he was received with kindness by Rutledge, Pinckney 
and Pickens. In his numerous stage coach journeys he met the casual 
passengers on the footing of a common manhood, whether they were 
senators, or judges, or statesmen, or wine merchants, or school girls, or 
seafaring men, or Methodist missionaries who were riding a greater cir- 
cuit than his at the annual compensation of $64. And then, too, the 
warm-hearted hospitality with which he was met everywhere, the din- 
ners given in his honor by cultivated men and women, the balls he 
attended and the beautiful young women with whom he danced. On 
one occassion he gives up a dance with one of these charming part- 
ners to write his letter to his wife, who through both the labors and 
the pleasures of his circuits, seemed to be ever present in his mind and 
heart. He, too, takes all these labors and pleasures in a manly whole- 


Srarre Literary AND HistoricaL ASsocIATION {al 


souled way. He never complains of hardships of the way, not even 
when he barely escapes drowning in the flooded Conetoe Swamp of 
Edgecombe County, or when the gentle South Carolina horse deceived 
him and threw him out of his chair, or when in Salisbury he was com- 
pelled to sleep with five other men in the same room, one in bed with 
him and not an attractive bed fellow, or in Richmond where he was 
compelled for three days to oceupy a bed room with three other men 
entire strangers to him. Nowhere in his correspondence do we per- 
ceive any of the acid which so often appears in the correspondence of 
his distinguished and wise but self-sufficient and opinionated brother- 
in-law, Samuel Johnston. He was, indeed, a good man. The whole 
world now recognizes him as a great man. Only the other day, August 
25, 1920, the president of the American Bar Association, in his an- 
nual address said that his Richard Dobbs Spaight letter, written in 
1787, stated with the utmost precision and strength the subsequently 
familiar doctrine of Marbury vs. Madison. As both good man and great 
man he belongs to North Carolina, is part of its history, and his fame is 
our heritage to be cherished and protected. 


North Carolina Bibliography 1919 - 1920 


rs ; By Mary B. PALMER 


’ 


Secretary North Carolina Library Commission 


This Bibliography covers the period from November 20, 1919 to 
November 30, 1920. 

The term Bibliography is here used to include the works of all native 
North Carolinians, regardless of present residence, and the works of 
writers who although not born in North Carolina, have lived here 
long enough to become identified with the state. Pamphlets and period- 
ical articles are not included. 


NEW PUBLICATIONS 


ABBREVIATIONS AND Sympots: ¢., copyright; il., illustrated; p., pages; 
v., volume. The capital letters, D. O. Q. S. T., refer to the size of 
the books. 


Bassett, Joun Spencer. Our war with Germany; a history. 0.386p. 
il. Knopf, 1919. $4.00. 


Brooxs, Evcene Crypr. Education for democracy; ed. by Lyman P. 
Powell. (Patriotism through literature.) D.263p. Rand, 1919. 
$1.25. 


Connor, Henry Groves. John Archibald Campbell, associate justice 
of the United States Supreme Court, 1853-1861. O0.310p. Hough- 
ton, 1920. $2.25. 


Dixon, Tuomas. Man of the people; a drama of Abraham Lincoln. 
D.155p. Appleton, 1920. $1.75. 


Dopp, Witt1am Epwarp. The cotton kingdom; a chronicle of the 
Old South. 0.161p. Yale Univ. press, 1919. (The chronicles 
of America series.) Subs. per series of 50 v., $175.00 


Dopp, Wituram Epwarp. Woodrow Wilson and his work. O.369p. 
maps. Doubleday, 1920. $3.00. 


Doveras, Joan Jorpan. The bells; il. by Lieut. John B. Mallard. 
D.104p. Presbyterian Standard Pub. Co., Charlotte, 1919. 


Down, JEROME. “Democracy in America, 500p. Harlow Publishing 
Co., Oklahoma City. 


State Lirrrary aND HistoricaL AssocIATION as 


Dozier, Howarp Doveras. A history of the Atlantic Coast Line 
Railroad. O.197p. Houghton, 1920. $2.00. (Hart, Schaffner & 
Marx prize essays in economics.) 


Ezexre1t, Hersert Tostas and Licnrenstery, Gaston. comps. World 
war section of The history of the Jews of Richmond. 0.381-443p. 
il. Richmond, Ezekiel, 1920. $2.00. 
Ezekiel is not a North Carolinian but Lichtenstein is. 


Frencu, Atrrep Liewetyn. A farmer’s musings. D.102p. il. Ed- 
wards and Broughton, Raleigh, 1920. 


Henperson, Arcuipatp. The conquest of the old Southwest; the 
romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, 
Tennessee and Kentucky, 1740-1790. D.395p. il. Century, 1920. 
$3.00. 


JOHNSON, CLaRENCE Warton. The history of the 321st Infantry with a 
brief historical sketch of the 81st Division. O. il. R. L. Bryan Co., 
Columbia, S. C., 1919. 


Kirxianp, Winirrep Marcaretra. The view vertical and other essays. 
D.270p. Houghton, 1920. $2.00. 


Licutenstern, Gaston. See Ezexret, H. T. 


Pearson, THomas Givpert; Brimiry, Crement Samvet; Beimtey, 
Hersert Hutcurson. Birds of North Carolina (Reports, v. 4). 
Q.380p. il. North Carolina Gedlogical and economic survey, 
Chapel Hill, 1919. $3.50. 


Pett, Epwarp Leicn. Bringing up John. D.192p. Revell, 1920. 
$1.75. 


Pritt, Epwarp Letcn. How can [ lead my pupils to Christ? Revell, 
1919. $1.00. 


Pett, Epwarp Leicu. Our troublesome religious questions. Revell. - 
$1.50. 


Ssarn, Cuartes AtpHonso. Poe (How to know authors). 346p. 
Bobbs, 1920. $2.00. 


Smirn, Cuartes AtpHonso and McMurry, Mrs. Lipa Brown. Smith- 
McMurry language series. 3 bks. D.208;256;270p. bk. 1, 64c; 
bk. 2, 68¢; bk. 3, 70c. 79. Johnson, B. F. 


74 TwENTIETH ANNUAL SESSION 


Sprunt, James. Derelicts: an account of ships lost at sea in general 
commercial traffic and a brief history of blockade runners stranded 
along the North Carolina coast, 1861-1865. O.304p. pri. ptd. A. 
Sprunt and Son, Wilmington, N. C., 1919. 


Surxivan, Wittarp P. and Tucker, Harry. The history of the 105th 
Regiment of engineers of the Old Hickory (30th) Division. Q. 
il. 466p. maps. Doran, 1919. 


Tucker, Harry. See Sunzivan, Wittarp P. 


Turner, J. Kerry and Briwerrs, Jno. L. History of Edgecombe Coun- 
ty. O.486p. Edwards and Broughton, Raleigh, 1920. $5.00. 


Winston, Grorcr Tayror. A builder of the New South being the 
story of the life work of Daniel Augustus Tompkins. O.403p. 
Doubleday, 1920. $3.00. 


CONTINUATIONS 


The most important addition to North Carolina continuations was 
the Southern Review, published at Asheville. The first number was 
issued in January, 1920. 


MINUTES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST 
ANNUAL SESSION 


Minutes of the Twenty-first Annual Session of the State 
Literary and Historical Association of 
North Carolina 


THURSDAY EVENING, Decemszr Isr. 


The twenty-first annual session of the Literary and Historical As- 
sociation of North Carolina was opened at 8 P. M., Thursday, Decem- 
ber Ist, 1921, in the auditorium of the Woman’s Club, Raleigh, N. C., 
with President D. H. Hill in the chair. An invocation was pronounced 
by Dr. Burton Alva Konkle of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 
President Hill read the president’s address. His subject was “The Con- 
federate Ordnance Department.” 


Mr. Homer L. Ferguson, President of the Newport News Ship- 
building and Dry Dock Company, who was to speak on “Shipbuilding 
During the World War,’ was prevented from coming on account of 
a business emergency. Dr. Benjamin Sledd, of Wake Forest College, 
kindly consented to supply the deficiency in the program. He spoke 
on “North Carolina Poets.” At the conclusion of Dr. Sledd’s address 
there was an informal reception in the Club building for the members 
of the Association and the members of the North Carolina Folk Lore 
Society, and their guests. 


FRIDAY MORNING, DecrempBerr 2np. 


The meeting was called to order in the Hall of the House of Re- 
presentatives, by President Hill. The following program of exercises 
was transacted in the order named: 


Paper—‘“North Carolina Bibliography, 1920-1921,” by Miss Mary B. Palmer, 
‘Secretary of the North Carolina Library Commission. 

Paper—“The Historian and the Daily Press,’ by Gerald W. Johnson, Asso- 
ciate Editor of the Greensboro Daily News. 


Paper—“An Old Time North Carolina Hlection,”’ by Miss Louise Irby, Pro- , 
fessor of History, North Carolina College for Women. 


Reading—Original poem, ‘‘Raleigh and Roanoke” by Reverend John Jordan 
Douglass, Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Wadesboro. 


Paper—“The Bread and Butter Element in North Carolina History,” by D. D. 
Carroll, Dean of the School of Commerce, University of North Carolina. 


At the conclusion of the exercises the president recognized Miss Lula 
Briggs, who introduced Mrs. D. H.. Blair of Greensboro, Historian 


78 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


General of the D.A.R. Mrs. Blair presented in the name of the 
D. A. R. to the Association, two volumes of North Carolina War Ser- 
vice Records 1914-1919. 

The president appointed the following committees with instructions 
to report at the evening session: 

Resolutions: T. M. Pittman, F. B. McDowell, and Bennehan 
Cameron. 

Nominations: W. C. Jackson, R. D. W. Connor, and D. T. Smith- 
wick. 

The president read the following communication: 

The Managers of the Duo-Centennial of the formation of Bertie County, 
October 2, 1722, invite the State Literary and Historical Association to hold 
its next annual meeting in Windsor, N. C., during the week including 


October 2, 1922. 
FRANCIS D. WINSTON, CHAIRMAN. 


This matter was referred, under the by-laws, to the incoming ex- 
ecutive committee. 

The president recognized Mrs. H. A. London, who presented to the 
Association a copy of the Bail Bond of Jefferson Davis. 

The matters of increasing the dues, honorary membership, and sus- 
taining members were referred to the incoming executive committee. 


FRIDAY AFTERNOON, DecremsBer 2np. 


There was a conference of history teachers in the rooms of the North 
Carolina Historical Commission. The conference was called to order 
at 3:30 P.M., December 2nd, by Dean W. C. Jackson, of the North 
Carolina College for Women. The following were present: R. D. W. 
Connor, E. C. Brooks, R. G. Adams, W. E. Stone, W. A. Graham, 
John Jordan Douglass, Miss L. Becker, Miss Louise Irby, T. M. Pitt- 
man, Bennehan Cameron, T. P. Harrison, Mrs. E. L. Whitehead, Miss 
Mary Price, and R. B. House. 

There was a general discussion of materials of North Carolina history, 
the use of these materials, the need of a published source book of North 
Carolina history. The discussion was concluded by a motion from 
Mr. Pittman that D. H. Hill, E. C. Brooks, and Miss Mary B. Palmer 
be appointed a committee to look into the practicability of publishing 
a source book of North Carolina history. The motion was carried. 

It was recorded as the sense of the meeting that similar conferences 
should be held each year in connection with the annual sessions of the 
Literary and Historical Association. 


Srate Lirerary anp Historican AssocraTIon 79 


FRIDAY EVENING, Decemser 2np. 


The meeting was called to order at 8:30 in the auditorium of Mere- 
dith College, by the president who introduced Dr. Samuel McChord 
Crothers, of Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Crothers addressed the Association 
on “Literary Fashions and Literary Values.” At the conclusion of 
this address the committee on nominations presented the following 
report, which was unanimously adopted: 


OrricEers oF THE State Literary snp Histortcat AssocraTIon 
The Committee report as follows: 


President—Dr. W. K. Boyd, Professor of History, Trinity College, 
Durham. 


Ist Vice-President—Capt. S. A. Ashe, Historian, Clerk of the Federal 
Court, Raleigh. 


2nd Vice-President—Mrs. D. H. Blair, Retiring Historian, D. A. R., 
Greensboro. 


38rd Vice-President—Rev. John Jordan Douglass, Poet, Presbyterian 
Minister, Wadesboro. 


Secretary-Treasurer—R. B. House, Archivist, Raleigh. 


(Signed) D. T. Smrruwicx, 
For the Committee. 


The Committee on Resolutions offered the following resolutions which 
were adopted: 


Whereas there is now a memorial before Congress for the marking of the 
scene in Alamance County, of the destruction of the Tory force organized at 
Hillsboro under Colonel John Pyle—an engagement that exerted a very 
marked influence on the campaign then in progress, 

Resolved, therefore, that the State Literary and Historical Association of 
North Carolina respectfully ask our Senators and Representatives in Con- 
gress to favor and to further this patriotic step in any way within their 
power. 

Resolved, that the best interests of society require that our youth shall 
be correctly informed concerning the history of our country. To that end we 
recommend that those in authority place such histories in our schools as shall 
be free from sectionalism and just to every part of our country. 

THomas M. PITTMAN, 

F. B. McDowE LL, 

BENNEHAN CAMERON. 
Committee. 


ADDRESSES 


Confederate Ordnance Department 
By D. H. HILt 


President of the State Literary and Historical Association 


It has often been asserted that the Southern people are lacking in 
inventive genius and organizing skill. If there were no other facts— 
and there are many—to disprove this assertion, the record of the Ord- 
nance Department of the Confederate States goes far to remove such 
an impression. 


The South in its zeal to contend for what it considered as constitu- 
tional rights went to war, as President Davis bluntly says “without 
counting the cost.” Its five million white people arrayed themselves 
against the twenty million of the North. Its agricultural population 
pitted itself against a diversified manutacturing people with access at - 
home and abroad to every sort of raw and manufactured material. Its 
laborers skilled mainly in farming had to vie with artisans who had 
served their apprenticeship in almost every modern trade. Its wealth, 
resting largely on cotton and tobacco, the value of which dwindled as 
soon as the northern navy cut these products off from markets, was at 
that period vastly inferior to that of the North. 


In addition to these insuperable disadvantages, its newly set up and 
experimental government had to contend against an established govern- 
ment with every department already functioning with a skill born of 
experience, with a far-reaching credit, with custom duties bringing in 
large revenues, with consular agents to collect information about com- 
modities and to mould sentiment in every considerable foreign port, 
with an excellent navy to protect its mercantile vessels and blockade 
Confederate harbors, and with a regular army large enough to set a 
high standard of efficiency for its volunteers. 


Truly it took sublime confidence in its cause, stout hearts, and a 
willingness to suffer, for the South to appeal to arms under these 
circumstances, circumstances not unknown to thoughtful Southerners. 

The first opportunity—and perhaps the most favorable opportunity, 
for Confederate success came just after the paralyzing Southern victory 
at First Manassas. Could the Confederate army shortly after that 
battle have pressed into the North before the Democrats, Bell, and 


Strate Lirerary anp Histroricar Association 81 


Everett men had become wedded to the Union cause, before the business 
men of the North had ceased to fret over the loss of Southern trade, 
before mammoth mercantile and mechanic corporations had taken up 
war fabrication, before the Union navy had been increased by purchases 
and conversions, before the enormous masses of raw troops that were 
pouring into Washington to take the places of the three months volun- 
teers had been moulded into a grand army by the organizing genius 
of McClellan, then most likely another signal victory on its own soil 
would have induced the North to follow Greeley’s advice and let the 
erring sisters “depart in peace.” 

Ropes, in many ways the ablest Northern writer on the war, thus 
presents his views on this opportunity: 


“It is altogether probable that the Confederate army was at that time 
decidedly the superior of its antagonist in many important respects. It had 
the prestige of victory. It had the self-confidence and audacity which the 
unfortunate panic which overtook their foes after the battle of Manassas 
Was over, could hardly fail to produce in the minds of the victors. It 
trusted its generals fully,—it believed in them enthusiastically. It was the 
only army in the country on either side that had won a considerable battle. 
It was the envy and pride of the Confederate soldier, . . . . and while 
we do not for a moment suppose that Johnston’s army was equal to either 
of the Confederate armies of Antietam or Gettysburg in point of efficiency, 
yet it would have considerable advantages over any troops which McClellan 
could have opposed to it as early as October, 1861. They must have been 
for the most part raw and undisciplined, unacquainted with their brigade 
and divisional commanders, and necessarily affected unfavorably to a greater 
or less extent by the fact of Bull Run having been a bad defeat for the 
Union forces. We may fairly say, therefore, that an invasion of the North 
undertaken, in October, 1861, held out a very fair promise of a successful 
result for the Confederate arms.” 


Was the South unaware of this opportunity? Not at all. Its three 
ranking officers at Manassas—Johnston, Beauregard, and G. W. Smith, 
—in a conference that they sought with Mr. Davis urged this very 
step. The Confederate President makes it plain that he too was un- 
willing to wage the war “on a purely defensive system,” but he could 
not furnish the 20,000 or 30,000 additional troops stated by the three 
generals to be necessary for such an invasion. Hence the opportunity 
so rich in promise was lost. 

This decision then raises another question. Was the South so little 
in earnest that, after setting up a government of its own, it was un- 
willing to furnish soldiers to fight for that government? Not so by any 
means, It may surprise you to know that at that very time the Con- 


6 


82 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


federate Secretary of War was declining to accept thousands of volun- 
teers. You may feel inclined, on hearing this, to ask “Was he a traitor 
or an ignoramus?” Neither. On August 31, 1861, Mr. Walker, the 
first Secretary of War, makes plain the reasons for this amazing fact. 
He says: 

“We have thousands of good and true men prepared for the field in camps 
of instruction, yet they are without arms. We could bring into the field and 


maintain there with ease 500,000 men were arms and munitions sufficiently 
abundant.” 


In December, 1861 Judah P. Benjamin, who succeeded Walker, writes 
to Mr. Davis as follows: 


“On (my) first entering on the duties of the Department (in September 
1861) the tenders of troops were very large, and it was not at all unusual 
for me to refuse offers of 5,000 men per day.” 


Thus it appears that an inability to arm its eager volunteers precluded 
the South from seizing its first clearly discerned opportunity of achiev- 
ing its goal. It was to supply these arms, of course, that the Ordnance 
Department about which I am to speak to you, was created. 


In spite of the oft-repeated and hard-to-die misrepresentation that 
Secretary Floyd of Buchanan’s cabinet, in anticipation of war, stocked 
the armories of the Southern states with small arms, the South’s pro- 
portion of national arms was small. The official report of the Chief 
of Ordnance of the United States discloses the fact that in January, 
1860, there were in government armories 610,262 small-arms of diverse 
patterns and varying degrees of inefficiency. Of these 410,671 were 
distributed in the North, 163,806 in the South, and 33,734 in the 
divided state of Missouri. These 163,806 muskets, mostly smooth-bores 
that had been only in part altered from flint and steel to percussion 
locks, were with the exception of a few state-owned, antiquated guns, 
the only small arms available for battle. So severe were the straits 
for arms that several of the states bought fowling-pieces and sporting 
rifles for their infantry and made spears for their cavalry. 


In artillery there was the same destitution. So far as can be made 
out from the incomplete reports, there were in 1861 only 716 heavy guns 
to defend 3000 miles of sea-coast and to protect the banks of almost 
a countless number of navigable rivers. Moreover, 192 of these guns 
were in two forts and most of them were of obsolete types. Some of 
them were decrepit survivors of the War of 1812. A disgusted officer 
described one of them as “venerable and picturesque in appearance.” 


State Lirrrary anp Historican Assocration 83 


The caliber of Lee’s guns was so diverse that the Ordnance Department 
was driven almost to desperation to supply so many types of ammunition. 

For the third arm, cavalry, which was the natural service for South- 
erners inasmuch as they were bred to the saddle, there were not only 
no arms, but saddles, bridles, blankets, and even horse-shoes were almost 
unobtainable. The brilliant service of Stuart’s small band of troopers at 
First Manassas is indicative of what might have been achieved if the 
hundreds of cavalry regiments that were offered could have joined their 
dash to the infantry. 


As scant as were arms, the supply of ammunition and soldierly 
equipage was even more disturbing. At the opening of hostilities there 
were, outside of the amount seized at Norfolk, only 60,000 pounds of 
powder in the Confederacy. Of lead there was none. The stock of 
percussion caps did not exceed a quarter of a million. Secretary Wal- 
ker’s answer to pointed interrogations of the Confederate Congress 
startled desperately the complacent propounders, for it disclosed that 
before the captures at Manassas the remaining war resources of the 
Confederacy on August 12, 1861, were 3,500 flintlock rifles, 200,000 
pounds of powder, 240 tons of saltpeter, 300 tons of sulphur, and one 
contract for lead. ‘The desperate condition may be summed as follows: 
The Government possessed none of the implements of war; second, it 
had no machinery for making these implements; third, it had no raw 
material to feed machines for making the implements. The situation 
was more graphically described than I can do it in conventional terms 
by one of the officers when he said, “We are in a h— of a fix.” 


I wish time permitted a full description of the men who managed to 
supply, out of nothing but indomitable wills, the material for carrying 
on a four year war. Josiah Gorgas, a graduate of West Point, then 
just resigned from the Ordnance Department of the United States 
Army, was placed at the head of this apparently forlorn hope. Gorgas 
was a student of science and of men. He possessed an original and 
constructive mind, and deserved General Joseph E. Johnston’s tribute: 
“Gorgas created the Ordnance Department out of nothing.” In passing 
it is illustrative of American life to note that the name and fame of 
this officer in the Confederate Army has been perpetuated into our 
generation by the name and fame of an equally brilliant son in the 
United States army, Surgeon-General W. C. Gorgas, whose success in 
the control of yellow fever and in making our Canal Zone habitable 
has elicited the admiration of the world. 

Gorgas gathered around him a notable group of officers. These in- 
cluded such gifted minds as those of I. M. St. John, Chief of the Bureau 


84 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


of Mines and Niter; Dr. John W. Mallet, Superintendent of Labora- 
tories, and afterwards widely known as a versatile and learned chemist 
+n the Universities of Texas and Virginia; Colonel George W. Rains, in 
charge of powder manufacture and powder plants, a brother of General 
Gabriel J. Rains, the inventor of the torpedo, both brothers being 
natives of this state and graduates of West Point; Colonel Richard 
Morton, and others. John Mercer Brooke, the Chief Ordnance officer 
of the Navy, the designer of the Merrimac, and the inventor of the 
famous Brooke gun, worked in conjunction with this group. 


There was dire need of such men, and it is impossible to understand 
the heroism of the Confederate struggle unless we comprehend the pa- 
tience, the foresight, the ingenuity, the scientific attainments of these 
resolute men behind the guns. Gorgas thus describes the task assigned 
him in April, 1861: 


“Within the limits of the Confederate States there were no arsenals at 
which any of the material of war was constructed. No arsenal except that 
at Fayetteville, North Carolina, had a single machine above a foot-lathe. 
Such arsenals as there were had been used only as depots. All the work of 
preparation of material had been carried on at the North; not an arm, not 
a gun, not a gun-carriage, and except during the Mexican War, scarcely a 
round of ammunition had for fifty years been prepared in the Confederate 
States. There were consequently no workmen, or very few of them, skilled 
in these arts. No powder, save perhaps for blasting, had been made in the 
South; there was no saltpetre in store at any Southern point; it was stored 
wholly at the North. There was no lead nor any mines of it except on the 
Northern limits of the Confederacy in Virginia and the situation of that 
made its product precarious. Only one cannon foundry existed—at Rich- 
mond. Copper, so necessary for field artillery and for percussion caps, was 
just being produced in East Tennessee. There was no rolling mill for bar 
iron south of Richmond; and but few blast furnaces and these small, and 
with trifling exceptions in the border states of Virginia and Tennessee.” 


The first necessity after arms was, of course, powder. The three 
ingredients—charcoal, sulphur, saltpeter or niter—as well as the mills 
for working them up had to be provided. The charcoal was readily 
obtained from ordinary pits. An adequate supply of sulphur for early 
operations was secured from the sugar refiners of the far South, and 
subsequently some was extracted from iron pyrites. The scarcity of 
saltpeter or niter was a most serious difficulty. Niter-bearing caves 
were sought in all the region traversed by the Appalachian mountains. 
Private production was stimulated by generous contracts and by offers 
of governmental aid in financing new plants. A refinery for the crude 
material was established at Nashville, Tennessee. As the war advanced, 


Srare Lirrrary anp Historicat Association 85 


it became evident that, owing to difficulties arising from conscription, 
inadequate transportation, and lack of technical skill, the Government 
would have to undertake the production not only of ordnance but of 
ordnance material, even to the mining of ores. 


“In addition, [says Secretary Benjamin] to the articles usually manu- 
factured in a military laboratory, it has become necessary to manufacture 
for the use of the war laboratories, articles usually found in the shops. Sul- 
phuric acid, nitric acid, different metallic salts, and a variety of chemicals 
can be obtained for the use of the laboratories only by our manufacturing 
them.” 


Accordingly a Bureau of Niter and Mining, with Colonel I. M. St. 
John as chief, was established. This industrious officer divided the 
niter-bearing areas into districts with an officer in charge of each 
district. When the Bureau was formed on April 11, 1862, the total 
production of niter in the Confederacy did not reach 500 pounds a day. 
Within three months after its establishment, the Bureau had sixteen 
niter caves, employing 387 men, in operation. By July 30, it had 
collected and refined 60,338 pounds of niter, taken over and enlarged 
two lead mines, and erected an admirable smelting-work at Petersburg, 
Virginia. From this humble beginning the Bureau made rapid strides 
in production. The reports at the close of 1864 show a yearly produc- 
tion from government and supervised caves of 1,735,531 pounds of niter 
and an importation of 1,720,072—a total of 3,455,603 pounds. Of this 
amount 238,907 pounds were produced in North Carolina at a cost of 
$163,983.68. This supply came from scraping nitrified soil from under 
homes, tobacco-barns, smoke-houses, barns, and hen-houses. To provide 
a reserve supply thirteen nitriaries were established by St. John at 
convenient places. The beds in these require time for ripening and the 
war closed before any niter was made from them, but Colonel St. John 
states that 2,800,000 cubic feet of earth had been collected and was in 
various stages of nitrification. 

In spite of the fact that in 1864 ten of the Virginia and all of the 
Georgia iron furnaces and the principal copper mines were captured or 
destroyed by the Federals, and that in the last quarter of 1864 there were 
no returns from Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee, the Bureau’s 
report for the same two years as above shows that it supplied the 
munition workers with 27,189 tons of iron, 823,349 pounds of copper, 
and 4,795,331 pounds of lead, and that the sulphuric acid chambers of 
its chemical works at Charlotte, North Carolina, were turning out an 
average yield of from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds a month. 


86 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


Coincident with its development of the Niter Bureau, the Ordnance 
Department pressed vigorously the manufacture of powder at govern- 
mental and at private mills, and the development of armories and ar- 
senals for making cannon, small arms, ammunition, and all military 
equipment. Under the superintendence of Colonel George W. Rains, (a 
most accomplished ordnance officer,) the Department built at Augusta, 
Georgia, a central powder mill that Gorgas describes as “far superior 
to any in the United States and unsurpassed by any across the ocean.” 
This establishment with its twelve grinders had a daily capacity of 
5,000 pounds. The Richmond mill, starting later than the others, was 
designed to produce daily about 1,500 pounds. The mill at Selma, 
Alabama, made up 500 pounds a day. The State of North Carolina 
aided Waterhouse & Bowes to erect near Raleigh a mill with a daily 
yield of 600 pounds. The state was furnished with niter and sulphur 
by the Confederate Government and sold the entire production of powder 
to the Ordnance officers. These four mills furnished, therefore, 7,600 
pounds each day. The Confederate Navy owned an excellent mill at 
Columbia, South Carolina. There were a few private mills—one at 
Charlotte, North Carolina, and for a time one at New Orleans, and a 
few state-aided mills. With the output from these mills supplemented 
by the cargoes which came through the blockade, there was always less 
anxiety about powder than there was about lead and copper. 

After the capture of the Ducktown copper mines and the Wytheville 
lead mines the Ordnance Department was desperately straightened to 
keep the munitions plants in copper and lead. From the beginning of 
the war the country and the battlefields had been gleaned for lead. The 
city of Charleston, by the sacrifice of its window-weights, water pipes, 
and odds and ends, contributed 200,000 pounds. Mobile, digging up the 
pipes of a discarded water system, furnished nearly the same amount. 
The State Ordnance office in Raleigh, which accepted only such as was 
offered and tried not to compete with the regular Bureau officers, bought 
27,885 thousand pounds of scrap lead in amounts varying from 5 to 800 
pounds. The state also transferred to the Ordnance Bureau 36,017 
pounds from importations through the blockade-runner, the Advance. 

After the Confederate calamities on the Mississippi River, the three 
main sources of what Gorgas calls “this precious metal” were all in 
jeopardy: first, the supply of scrap lead was constantly diminishing; 
second, the importations through the blockade were seriously imperilled 
by the loss of Southern ports; third, the Wytheville mines, the only 
largely productive ones, were constantly menaced by the enlarged opera- 
tions of the Federal armies. 


Sratrre Lirrrary anp HistoricaL AssocIATION 87 


Tn his annual report for the year closing September 30, 1864, Gorgas, 
after calling attention to the fact that his reserve of lead had been ex- 
hausted by the fierce fighting from Chancellorsville through Cold Har- 
bor, was impelled to warn the Secretary of War that he “felt more 
uneasiness on this point than on all others.” 


The Ordnance Department was always confronted, too, with a shortage 
of copper, a metal almost as necessary to munition shops as lead. The 
supply was fairly sufficient as long as the Ducktown mines were held by 
the Confederates and as the ever-useful blockade runners could make 
Southern ports. When, however, the Tennessee mines passed into 
Union hands and the activity of the blockade traffic was checked, the 
ordnance officers had to resort to every sort of shift to secure copper 
or find substitutes for it. As the pressure for copper became greater, 
cities gave their clocks, churches their bells, and women stripped their 
homes of brass kettles, andirons, and candle-sticks. The country was 
searched with inquisitive eyes and forceful hands for the copper worms 
of turpentine and whiskey distilleries. The turpentine distillers were 
paid for their material; that of the whiskey-makers was confiscated as 
part of an illegal traffic. The chief of the Ordnance Bureau, in his 


December 31, 1864, report points out the scarcity of copper and steel. 
He says: 


“These articles must be obtained chiefly from abroad, and the stock on 
hand is very small. The Bureau is constantly making substitutes of iron 
in every possible way to diminish the consumption and eke out the supply.” 


Iron was never so scarce as lead and copper. Although the Southern 
people had never been widely drawn to mining, there were some well- 
equipped mines and furnaces. Fortunately, this ore smelted with wood, 
had an unusually high tensile strength. This toughness of texture 
offset in a measure the defects which arose from the inexperience of 
the early gun-makers, but until skill had been attained frequent burst- 
ings caused a “Richmond gun” to be viewed with apprehension. As the 
manufacture of cannon and projectiles increased, it became necessary 
to stimulate iron production in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, 
Georgia, and Alabama. 


“To this end contracts were made with iron-masters in these states on 
liberal terms and advances of money to be refunded in products. These 
contracts were difficult to arrange, as so much had to be done for the 
contractor. He must have details from the army and the privilege of trans- 
porting provisions and other supplies over the railroads. Then, too, the 
question of the currency was always recurring.” 


88 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


Munition plants as well as all private industries had to rely largely on 
detailed soldiers or retained conscripts for all skilled or even trainable 
workmen. Most of the men above conscript age, even if they could 
have acquired skill at their ages, were required on the farms. Negroes 
could be relied on for the rough work, and disabled soldiers and women 
for the clerical duties, but the army had to furnish the competent 
artisans. These men were, of course, subject to instant recall. When- 
ever a Federal raid or a general advance into the neighborhood of a 
mine or furnace impended, or whenever the Confederate armies were 
gathering for serious fray, all the detailed men and conscripts in reach 
would have to drop spades and hammers and take up muskets. Pro- 


duction, of course, declined in proportion to the duration of their © 


withdrawal. As the Confederate armies dwindled from wounds and 
deaths, the demand for soldiers stripped the shops and arsenals of most 
of their vigorous workmen. During the last twelve months of the 
contest practically only superintendents, foremen, and a few indis- 
pensable mechanics in each plant were left to stagger forward with the 
burden as best they could. The managers had to employ boys under 
eighteen and such men over forty-five as could be spared from some farm. 


By overcoming innumerable difficulties the Ordnance Bureau was 
delivering some arms and munitions from eight arsenals and four 
supply depots before the close of the first trying year of the war. 
Owing to the vicissitudes of war, there were other plants added and 
some discontinued. Those west of the Mississippi were practically 
closed after the capture of New Orleans. The plant at Nashville was 
removed to Atlanta, and then, on Sherman’s approach, to Columbus. 
The one at Mount Vernon, Alabama, was transferred to Selma. This 
arsenal was later turned over to the Confederate navy and there Com- 
mander Brooke “made many of his formidable banded and rifled guns.” 
The strain-resisting castings made from the tough iron of this section 
gave to the completed batteries of field artillery from this arsenal a 
special value. The shops at the Montgomery arsenal were mainly used 
for the repair of small arms and for the manufacture of leathern 
articles. A factory for harness for artillery horses was set up at 
Clarksville, Virginia. The arsenal at Charleston was enlarged in order 
that it might do varied repair work. The Bureau located a combination 
plant, consisting of foundry, shops, and ordnance laboratory, at Salis- 
bury, North Carolina. The private arsenal at. Asheville, after being 
taken over by the Government, was moved to Columbia for greater 
security. 


—_— 


Strate Lirerary anp Historicat AssocraTion 89 


The same vexations and expense that prevailed in preparing and 
distributing artillery projectiles for guns of widely different ealibers, 
existed in the small arm ammunition. The Confederate infantry, in the 
first months of war, bore into battle as motley an aggregation of arms 
as ever distressed an ordnance train. Not infrequently a regiment that 
had exhausted its ammunition could not borrow from a neighboring 
regiment, nor be supplied from the nearest wagons, because of a differ- 
ence in the calibration of arms. 


As early as circumstances would permit, the War Department took 
steps to obviate this harassment and at the same time to effect an im- 
provement in the quality of the ammunition, which in some of the 
arsenals had been very unsatisfactory. The first step was to appoint 
Major J. W. Mallet, an accomplished chemist, superintendent of all 
the laboratories. By a rigid system of supervision which secured more 
uniformity of processes, Mallet “produced marked improvement in the 
ammunition fabricated, in spite of deficient labor and materials.” The 
second step was to begin two central plants at Macon, Georgia; one 
under Colonel Burton, to manufacture standard rifles; the other, under 
Colonel Mallet, to produce standard ammunition. The machinery for 
both the armory, which was to have a capacity of 10,000 arms a month, 
and for the arsenal, was bought in Europe and was in Nassau and Ber- 
muda when the war ended. A third step was to set up factories in 
Europe under private names and import the output. 


The first two armories to begin the making of small arms were those 
that grew out of the arsenals at Fayetteville, North Carolina, and at 
Richmond. Both began operations with seized machinery. When the 
United States Armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, was set on fire by 
the evacuating Federal troops, the gun-making machinery was saved by 
the Virginia soldiers, who entered on the heels of the retiring Unionists. 
All the machinery used for making the Mississippi rifles (caliber 54) 
was sent to Fayetteville where there was a small, but well appointed 
arsenal, with a newly-installed steam service. The other machinery was 
transferred to Richmond. 

After the installation of its riflemaking machinery, the Fayetteville 
armory’s production, when running full-handed, was 10,000 rifles a year; 
it rarely ran to its capacity. The Richmond arsenal and armory, work- 
ing in conjunction with the Tredegar Iron Works and with private 
contractors, grew into an establishment of very large proportions. While 
its capacity output of small-arms was reckoned at only 25,000 a year, 
it contributed a wide variety of military necessities. The small arsenal 
at Columbia, using the machinery removed from Asheville, was counted 


90 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


on for 4,000 rifles each year. The armories at Tallahassee, Alabama, 
and at Athens, Georgia, had a productive power respectively of 6,000 
carbines and 10,000 rifles. By the close of 1864 these five armories then 
could, when provided with laborers, make up 55,000 rifles a year. 


The duties of the Ordnance Department included the importation as 
well as manufacture of war material, but time will not permit any 
discussion of the invaluable foreign blockade-running operations of the 
Department. Suffice it to say that loans, based on cotton, enabled the 
department to supply the Confederacy by September 30, 1863, 113,504 
excellent small arms. The number was subsequently increased, including 
state importations, to 185,000. This number, to which must be added 
the 63,000 produced to that date, and the 150,000 captured, brings the 
total Confederate supply of small arms to 423,000. This is the entire 
supply with which the Confederates fought for four years. To Nov. 
16, 1863, 677 pieces of field artillery, with their carriages, caissons, 
harness, etc., were bought and made. The same official report (Official 
Records IV, 2,958) shows that the following articles were either re- 
paired, purchased, or fabricated: 209,910 rounds of ammunition for 
heavy guns; 446,719 for field artillery; 37,553,654 rounds of small-arm 
ammunition; 46,972,599 musket caps; 1,457,057 pounds of powder; 
226,450 haversacks; 163,522 cartridge-boxes ; 85,291 canteens, and a long 
array of other articles. 


A world of ingenuity was lavished on substitutes for unprocurable 
material as well as on labor-saving and time-saving devices. When 
copper, with which Brooke and other ordnance scientists banded their 
rifled guns, could no longer be secured, an excellent substitute was found 
in tough iron bands. When the supply of mercury failed the chemists 
found that a mixture of chlorate of potash and sulphuret of antimony 
made just as good musket-caps as fulminate of mercury. Cloth stitched 
into several folds and coated with shellac took the place of leather in 
belts, bridle-reins, saddle-skirts, haversacks, etc. Rains introduced a 
method of making powder that vastly improved that article. Captain 
R. S. Williams invented a multiple fring gun. The Department devised 
ways of using Reed’s process for improving rifled shells, for developing 
a shell with polygonal cavities, for the better timing of fuses, for the 
fabrication from cotton cloth of a rain-proof material for coats, blankets, 
ete. When the linseed oil for this process became scarce, a fishery for 
making the oil was established at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. 

When we recall these achievements and others that might be men- 
tioned, we feel that we can join Gorgas in his tribute to his fellow 
workers: 


State Lirrerary anp Historican AssociaTION gh 


“We began in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder mill 
of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill except at Richmond, 
and before the close of 1863, in a little over two years, we had built up, 
during all the harassments of war, holding our own in the field definitely 
and successfully against a powerful and determined enemy. Crippled as 
we were by a depreciated currency; throttled with a blockade that de- 
prived us of nearly all means of getting material or workmen; obliged to 
send almost every able-bodied man to the field; unable to use the slave 
labor with which we were abundantly supplied, except in the most unskilled 
departments of production; hampered by want of transportation even of the 
commonest supplies of food; with no stock on hand even of the articles such 
as steel, copper, lead, iron, leather, which we must have to build up our 
establishments; and in spite of these deficiencies we persevered at home as 
determinedly as our troops did in the field against a more tangible opposi- 
tion, and in a little over two years created almost literally out of the 
ground foundries and rolling mills (at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta, and Ma- 
con), smelting works (at Petersburg), chemical works (at Charlotte), a 
powder mill far superior to any in the United States and unsurpassed by 
any across the ocean, and a chain of arsenals, armories, and laboratories 
equal in their capacity and their improved appointments to the best of 
those in the United States, stretching link by link from Virginia to Alabama. 
Our people are justly proud of the valor and constancy of the troops who 
bore their banners bravely in front of the enemy, but they will also reflect 
that these creations of skill and labor were the monuments which re- 
presented the patience, industry, and perseverance of devoted and patriotic 
citizens.” 


An Ode 
By BENJAMIN SLEDD 


[Read on Armistice Day, 1921, at the dedication of the Memorial to Wake Forest 
students fallen in the Great War'] 


America, on this proud day, 

Thy loyal children, we 

With lips and heart would pay 
Tribute of love and homage unto thee. 


Peace, Peace! with victory 

Of Honour and of Right 

Over old Wrong and Tyranny 
New-risen in this primal, brutal night. 


Peace, peace, with more than victory! 

For now, America, at last 

Those years of difference they are past: 
Peace between thee : 

And thine own kin beyond the sea ; 

Brothers, henceforth are we 

Thrice strong with strength of unity; 
Fearless to reach a brother hand 

To raise the fallen in whatsoever land, 

To right the wrong wherever wrong may be. 


America, on this proud day, 

While many a land, at last made free 

From time-long tyranny, 

With lips and heart shall pay 

Tribute of homage unto thee,— 

While on the waiting Mother’s breast 

Her Unknown Soldier Dead is laid to rest,— 
Here, where they walked in life, we come to raise 
A votive stone and speak the praise 

Of our own dead. Their all they gave 

The cause of all, when all seemed lost, to save. 
Was it too great, the price they paid? 


(1) Doctor Sledd read this poem at the conclusion of his interesting lecture on North 
Carolina poets—Ed 


Srate Lirerary anp Historrcat AssocraTIon 


What price had been too great?— , 

Once to have freed all Europe from the weight 
Of nightmare years of arméd hate; 
Forever to have laid 

The spectre of the Red Right Hand 

And Blazing Brand, 

Still overshadowing sea and land: 

To have made once more the patriot’s word 
In councils of the people heard; 

And given the world a peace that saith 
Nation with nation shall keep faith. 


And he, our Chieftain and our guide, 
Lying stricken today by the Potomac side, 
His hour of triumph still denied; 

Shall we the tardy years await 

To show all honor to the man, 

So sternly just, so singly great, 

So brave to bear the hand of Fate? 

And shall it fail, the goodliest plan 

That patient-striving wisdom can? 

Or shall it be the dawning’s tremulous ray 
Broadening at last into the perfect day 
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men? 


Peace, peace again! 

Not builded for To-day upon the sand 

But reared with patience, toil and pain; 
Broad-based, deep-founded, fitted to withstand 
To-morrow’s stress and strain, 

When blow the winds and falls the rain: 
Peace, peace, by land and sea, 

With more than Peace to be! 


93 


North Carolina Bibliography, (1920-1921) 


By Mary B. PALMER 


Secretary North Carolina Library Commission 


This Bibliography covers the period from November 20, 1920 to 
November 1, 1921. 

The term Bibliography is here used to include the works of all 
native North Carolinians, regardless of present residence, and the 
works of writers who, although not born in North Carolina, have lived 
here long enough to become identified with the state. Pamphlets, con- 
tinuations, and periodical articles are not included. 


NEW PUBLICATIONS 


ABBREVIATIONS AND SyMpots: ¢., copyright; il., illustrated; p., pages; 
v., volume. The capital letters, D. O. Q. S. T. F., refer to the size of 
the books. 


Bacon, Wittiam James, ed. History of the Fifty-fifth field artillery 
brigade. 1917, 1918, 1919. F.335p. il. The author, Goodbar 
bldg., Memphis, Tenn., 1920. $6.00. 

The history of the 55th F. A. brigade proper as used in this volume 
was prepared by Walter Chandler; the 105th Ammunition train by 

W. W. Lewis; the 113th F. A. by Arthur L. Fletcher. 


Bassett, JoHN SPENCER. Short history of the United States, 1492- 
1920. 0.942p. il, Macmillan, 1921, $3.90. 


Bost, Mrs. Emma, (Incorp). Songs in many keys. O.80p. il. The 
author, 740 10th Ave., Hickory, N. C., 1920. $1.25. 


Brooxs, Everns Crype and Carmicuarr, W. D. North Carolina. 
O.32p. il. Rand, 1921. 65¢. 


Gisson, Jutra Amanpa and Maruews, Mavup Crate. Lineage and 
tradition of the family of John Springs III, ed. by and cover and 
title designed by Maude Craig Mathews. 0.418p. Foote and 
Davies Co., Atlanta, 1921. 


Girzert, Cursrer Garrieip, and Poguz, J. E. America’s power 
resources; the economic significance of coal, oil and water-power. 
D.326p. il. Century, 1921. $2.50. 


Mr. Pogue is a North Carolinian. 


Srare Literary anpD Historica, ASssocraTION 95 


Harper, Witi1am Aten. Reconstructing the church; an examination 
of the problems of the times from the standpoint of a layman of 
the church; introd. by F. Marion Lawrence. D.188p. Revell, 
1920. $1.25. 


Houuzsz, E.G. History of the great world war. . . illustrated with 
photographic reproductions of the men from Granville county 
who took part in this unparalleled conflict. Q.214p. il. Oxford 
Orphanage, Oxford, N. C., 1920. 


Jonzes, Gitmer AnprEw. Jones quizzer, consisting of North Carolina 
Supreme Court questions and answers from September term, 1898 
to August term, 1920. 2d ed. O.280p. The author, Franklin, 
N. C., 1921. $5.00. 


Kirgianp, Wrnirrep Marcarerra. Christmas shrine; or, the makers 
of peace. S.30p. Womans Press, 1920. 85c. 


Koon, Freperick Henry. Raleigh, the Shepherd of the Ocean, designed 
to commemorate the tercentenary of the execution of Sir Walter 
Raleigh, with a foreword by Edwin Greenlaw. O.95p. il. Ral- 
eigh Woman’s Club, Raleigh, N. C., 1920. $2.50. 


MorEueap, Jonn Mortizy. The Morehead family of North Carolina 
and Virginia. F.147p. il. Priv. printed DeVinne Press, 1921. 


Norru Carorrna Sorosis. A pageant of the lower Cape Fear written 
in collaboration by citizens of Wilmington in North Carolina, 
with the supervision of Frederick Henry Koch. O.130p. il. Wil- 
mington Printing Company, Wilmington, N. C., 1921. $2.50. 


Pett, Epwarp Lzieu. What did Jesus really teach about prayer? 
D.203p. il. Revell, 1921. $1.50. 


Price, Naratre Wuittep. Sketches in lyric prose and verse. O.80p. 
bds. Seymour, 1920. $2.00. 


Saunpers, Wir1t1am O. Concept of life and other Saunders editorials: 
being some editorials and epigrams as written from time to time 
by W. O. Saunders himself and now gathered into a book and’ 
printed in the shop of the Independent. O.68p. The author, 
Elizabeth City, N. C., 1921. 60c. 


Scuerer, James Aucustin Brown. Tree of light. D.125p. il. Crowell, 
1921. $1.35. 


Suirn, Cuartes Atpnonso, O. Henry. O.40p. Martin and Hoyt 
Co., Atlanta, 1921. 40c. 


96 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


Surrn, Henry Louis. Your biggest job, school or business: some 
words of counsel for red-blooded young Americans who are get- 
ting tired of school. D.79p. Appleton, 1920. $1.00. 


Srepuenson, Gursert T. The business relation between God and 
man a trusteeship. D.112p. Sunday School Board, Southern 
Baptist Convention, 1921. 


Turner, Josep Kerry and Brmcrrs, Joun Luruer. History of 
Edgecombe county, North Carolina. O.486p. il. The author, 
Rocky Mount, N. C., 1920. $5.00. 


Wirtrams, Cartes Burerss and Hitz, Danret Harvey. Corn book 
for young folk. D.250p. il. Ginn, 1920. $1.20. 


The Historian and the Daily Press 


By GERALD W. JOHNSON Ge: 


Associate Editor of the Greensboro Daily News 


What is a historian? Webster answers, “A writer of history; a 
chronicler; an annalist.” If that definition were exhaustive, I should 
have no subject; for the chronicling of events, the notation of dates and 
characters in the drama of the world, is but the routine of my own 
craft. The newspaper is the greatest of annalists, and if the historian 
were no more, then historian and daily press would be one. But if 
history is more than merely the repository of facts, even of carefully 
adjusted and correlated facts, the historian must be more than a sub- 
limated newspaper reporter. The technical definition is not exhaustive. 

Nor is the popular definition appreciably more encouraging. It varies 
with the populace, of course, but in North Carolina I do not believe that 
I am satirizing it in giving it utterance as follows: a man whose mem- 
ory is a storehouse of irrelevant information, a man who can tell you 
the date of the battle of Fontenoy, or when Richard Dobbs Spaight 
died, but whose interest in the activities of the human race includes 
none more recent than those of, say, the year 1870; except, perhaps, 
that the more active and inquiring minds among them may have brought 
their catalogue of exciting events down as far as November 11, 1918. 
In short, the popular conception of a historian is that of a man who 
deals definitely, and exclusively, with the past. Popular definitions are 
rarely, if ever, without some foundation in fact; I leave it to you to 
determine how much basis of fact there is in this one. 

But it is not exhaustive. If it were, I should still have no subject, 
for the newspaper’s is the most ephemeral existence imaginable. Noth- 
ing is deader than yesterday’s newspaper. Nothing is more remote than 
its relation to things that pertain exclusively to the past. Its pre- 
occupation is with today; and until the historian projects himself and 
his science into today’s affairs, his professional relation to the daily 
press is non-existent. ; 

Not that the daily press has any objection to historical material in 
itself. The freshness of a news story, generally speaking, constitutes 
its chief newspaper value. But that is not its only value; and when its 
other qualifications are sufficiently high, age, contrary to the general 
impression, will not bar it. It used to be said that President Roosevelt 


7 


98 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


could, and did, restate the Ten Commandments in such novel and strik- 
ing form that every newspaper in the country printed them. But that 
was Roosevelt, not the Decalogue. Mr. W. T. Bost once wrote a story 
of a congressional convention that had occurred, not the previous day, 
but four years before; and the story was so good that the Greensboro 
Daily News printed it on the front page. The value of that story lay in 
its superlatively fine reporting. A historian who can speak like Mr. 
Roosevelt, or write like Mr. Bost, could no doubt turn in an account 
of the battle of Gettysburg, and get it printed. But his relation to the 
newspapers would be that of a clever publicist, not that of a historian. 
And it is the historian and the daily press that this paper is supposed 
to discuss. 


If there is no intimate and mutually profitable relation between them, 
it must be because neither historians nor daily newspapers have reached 
the ideal toward which both should strive. That ideal, I take it, is the 
position of an expositor to the public of the truth about men and events 
which the average man is not in position to observe for himself. Time 
and space are the deterrents of humanity’s acquirements of all knowl- 
edge; it is the historian’s business to reduce the handicap of time; it is 
the newspaper’s business to reduce that of space. Their common object 
is, immediately, to furnish men with accurate information in order that, 
ultimately, men may know the truth which will make them free. So, 
in the final analysis, the historian who is true to his science, and the 
newspaper that is true to its pretensions, pursue a common ideal—the 
discovery, and the transmission to others, of as much of the truth as 
it is humanly possible to apprehend. 


Therefore, no matter how far apart their starting points, since they 
work toward a single goal it is a logical necessity that their paths 
should converge. The point of contact is reached when the incident 
of the day, which it is the newspaper’s business to handle, cannot be 
interpreted aright except in the light of something that has gone before, 
something that lies in the province of the historian. Then, if the people 
are to know the truth, the historian’s special knowledge must buttress 
the journalist’s general information. Then the profession and the 
trade supplement each other to admiration—the newspaper man has the 
fact, the historian has the knowledge to illuminate it. By their joint 
effort, and only by their joint effort, can they set it forth to the world 
in its true relations, can they make men estimate it at its true value. 

But immediately the question arises as to the necessity of the his- 
torian’s dependence upon the newspapers. Granting the importance of 
the historian’s special knowledge in these critical times, and granting 


Sratre Literary AND HistorrcaL AssocraTIoN 99 


the imperiousness of his summons to place his knowledge at the service 
of his country, one may still inquire, why should he resort to the col- 
umuns of the daily press? Why should he not adhere to the time-honored 
method of inclosing his information in books? 


The answer is obvious: because it is the age of democracy, and the 
daily press alone has the ear of DEMOS. Did our national policies 
depend upon the will of a small class, a leisurely and cultured class, 
such as actually ruled the country far into the nineteenth century, it 
might be feasible to reach them with books and reach them in time. 
But the fate of the nation no longer rests in the hands of studious and 
cultured gentlemen. It is directed by the will of the multitude, swayed 
by the passions of the multitude, and may be wrecked by the mistakes 
of the multitude. Information, to be of value to the nation, must be im- 
parted to the multitude; and therefore it must come through the chan- 
nels that reach the multitude, or come not at all. The daily press 
furnishes the only reading matter of enough people to swing the balance 
in any election. Therefore it is only through the daily press that the 
historian can reach the people, and reach them promptly. 


Moreover, how many books could be produced if North Carolina were 
their sole market? Yet North Carolina, no less than the nation, has 
need of the services of some of you. North Carolina, also, is in a 
transitional period. She is changing her status and her whole outlook 
on life swiftly, almost suddenly. Therefore she is confronted with new 
problems that yet are in some measure old; and she needs desperately a 
true historical perspective if she is to understand them; and understand 
them she must, if she is to deal with them competently, and thereby 
clear the way to the leadership that appears now to be in sight. 


Leadership is to be achieved by people who make mistakes, else none 
of us ever could qualify. But it is rarely, and with immense difficulty, 
to be achieved by people who make the same mistake twice. And how 
is the repetition of errors to be avoided by a people that is uninformed, 
or misinformed, as to the mistakes it has made in the past? 


One of the thankless tasks that devolves upon you, as keepers of the 
records of the past, is the duty of warning the present generation lest 
it walk into ancient pitfalls. But if we must occasionally drag into the 
light of day the mistakes of our fathers, surely it is better to do it in 
the columns of a daily newspaper, that passes into oblivion with the 
rising of tomorrow’s sun, than in the permanence of a book. If the 
warning is to serve for today, it must be spread where it will be read 
today; and if the display passes with the need of it, so much the better. 


100 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


I should like much to see a series of articles by some historian of 
repute, analyzing the effects today of a certain characteristic that has 
been prominent in the record of North Carolina since the history of the 
state began. I refer to its astonishing self-sufficiency, as reflected in its 
political philosophy. The independence of North Carolina, its stiff 
refusal to bow the neck to any exterior power whatsoever, has brought us 
many, and enduring, glories—but it also brought us Appomatox. Who 
believes that the northern armies could have endured the series of dis- 
asters that marked the first two years of the war had they not been 
nerved to fresh efforts by the thought that they were fighting the insti- 
tution of human slavery? Our refusal to accept the moral judgment of 
the rest of the nation against that abomination was at last the cause of 
our downfall—a downfall that utter devotion and immortal valor could 
postpone, but could not avert. That valor and that devotion are worthy 
of honor and praise, and we do well to dwell upon them; but is there 
less significance in the singularly blind determination to run our own 
affairs in our own way that caused them to be spent in vain? 


That valor and devotion may be part of our heritage from our fathers, 
but that determination certainly is. Twice within recent years North 
Carolina interests have upset federal legislation governing child labor, 
less because North Carolinians are resolved to feed their children to 
the Moloch of industrialism than because they resent the interference 
of Congress with their business affairs. Is not this independence run to 
seed? North Carolina is rapidly becoming an industrial state, but it has 
as yet no effective workmen’s compensation law, because manufacturers 
dislike state interference in their business; and that in the face of the 
fact that the most enlightened industrial communities long ago agreed 
that the risks of industry ought not to be borne by labor alone. Our 
boasted independence is once more bringing us into collision with the 
moral judgment of the nation. On the question of schools, on the ques- 
tion of roads, most conspicuously on the question of taxation, the ery 
of “county self-government” is being raised. Yet in all these things 
the counties have been tried and it has been proved that they are in- 
capable of acting with wisdom and energy. “License they mean when 
they ery liberty.” 

What better service could a historian render North Carolina today 
than to attack and demolish this false independence, this much touted 
spirit of liberty which is really the spirit of obscurantism? “Your 
goodness,” said Emerson, “must have some edge to it, else it is none.” 
Put an edge to your history, gentlemen, an edge that will cut away the 
weeds of vanity and bombast that have overgrown our minds. Tip the 


Strate Lirerary AND Historrcat ASssocrATION 101 


spearhead of your history with the point of a modern fact, and you 
have a weapon that the daily press never can resist the temptation to 
wield. And what dragons of error you might be the means of slaying, 
what dangers you might be the means of removing from the path of 
this state, no imagination is able to guess. 


I have purposely touched upon the distasteful side of the historian’s 
duty, as I see it, because that is the side ordinarily glossed over. There 
is small need to emphasize the pleasanter side of your work, for surely 
you must know that the daily press would be gratified to be allowed to 
assist you in your function as conservators of the accumulated wisdom 
of the past and custodians of the glories that our fathers won. I wish to 
assure you that we recognize also our duty to assist when it is necessary 
to exhibit the skeletons, and not the crowns. 

For we are engaged alike in the hopeless quest. You are a learned 
society, and I the representative of a guild; but we both seek for the an- 
swer to the question Pilate asked Omniscience, and asked in vain: 
“What is truth?” We shall not find the answer in its entirety, but 
we may approach it if we seek diligently. But we must face all that 
we discover, whether it seems to us evil or good, for only as we tell her 
honestly and candidly all that we have found can we hope to help 
North Carolina to climb that long ascent that it is our pride to believe 
will eventually lead her among the stars. 


An Old Time North Carolina Election 


By Louise IRBY 

Associate Professor of History, North Carolina College for Women 
“Then none was for a party; 

Then all were for the State; 


Then the great man helped the poor, 
And the poor man loved the great.” 


~ 


Thus the poet makes the old Roman lament the decadence of his own 
times in contrast with “the brave days of old.’ Such a lament is com- 
mon to every generation, each of which looks back to the generations 
of the past as superior to itself. It is human to magnify the faults 
of those nearest to us and to laud the virtues of those from whom we 
are separated by great stretches of time or space. Yet when we really 
find out the conditions in the past, we learn that many of those whose 
records are brightest often took part in proceedings that would be con- 
demned by our standards of today. For instance, no matter how demo- 
cratie we may proclaim our country to have been in the past, we find 
everywhere a cleavage based on wealth, family, or some other artificial 
distinction. It has been aptly said that a statesman is a dead politi- 
cian. So, too, the term “politician” with a slurring import is often used 
of one who in the future may be referred to as a great statesman. 


I am going to tell the story of an election in which some of the most 
eminent of the early statesmen of North Carolina resorted to tactics 
which would arouse the moral indignation of a present-day Tammany 
politician. The story is well worth the telling for it involves not only 
some of the greatest names in the history of North Carolina, but what 
is of more interest, it concerns the most important political campaign 
in the history of the American people, viz., the campaign of 1788 for the 
ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The campaign in 
North Carolina aroused bitter class-feeling which put to shame the 
boasted democracy of our “Revolutionary Fathers.” The “Esquires” 
and the “Common People” lined up against.each other in solid phalanxes 
which soon crystallized into real political parties. 


The Convention held in Philadelphia in 1787 for the purpose of pre- 
paring a new form of government for the United States, after com- 
pleting its work, adopted a resolution expressing the opinion that Con- 
gress should submit the Constitution to a convention of delegates in 
each state, chosen by the people thereof, “under the recommendation of 


Srate Lirrrary AND HistoricaL ASssocIATION 103 


its Legislature.” A copy of the proposed Constitution, accompanied by 
an open letter from Washington, president of the Convention, was sent 
to the legislatures through the governors of the several states. Imme- 
diately the advocates and the opponents of the new scheme of govern- 
ment marshalled their forces for the contest under the names of Fed- 
eralists and Anti-Federalists. Then, for the first time in our history, 
appeared the germs of our modern political parties. In the campaign 
that followed party animosity and personal bitterness raged more 
furiously than ever before or since in our-history, except, perhaps, in the 
great campaign involving the issues of slavery and freedom. 


The campaign in North Carolina was no exception to this general 
rule. Governor Caswell submitted the new Constitution to the General 
Assembly on November 21, 1787. The two houses in joint session named 
the last Friday and Saturday in March, 1788 as the time for the choice 
of delegates to attend a state convention for the purpose of deliberating 
on the Constitution. Freemen who had paid public taxes could vote in 
the election, but only freeholders were eligible to sit in the Convention. 
Each of the fifty-eight counties was entitled to have five delegates, each 
of the six borough towns one, and the election was to be held under the 
same rules as regular elections for members of the General Assembly. 
The delegates elected were to assemble in Convention at Hillsborough 
July 21, 1788. The public printer was ordered to print 1500 copies 
of the Constitution to be dispersed by the members of the Assembly 
among their constituents. 


The campaign was conducted with great violence. At the sessions 
of the courts, at county militia musters, in the taverns, wherever men 
gathered, the main topics of conversation were the Constitution and its 
framers. Arguments were advanced pro and con in letters, in pam- 
phlets, in communications to the newspapers, and in public addresses. 
The progress of sentiment in other states was eagerly followed. Ad- 
vocates of the Constitution focussed attention on the beneficial results 
that would follow adoption; their opponents pointed out many defects 
in the plan drawn up at Philadelphia. In the heat of argument no 
man’s character was above attack and no past political or military 
service could overcome party animosity. Thomas Person, a general of 
the Revolution and a patriot of undoubted sincerity, denounced Wash- 
ington as “a damned rascal and traitor to his country for putting his 
hand to such an infamous paper as the new Constitution.” Willie Jones, 
leader of the Anti-Federalists, found it necessary to deny in the public 
press that he had “called the Members of the Grand Convention, gen- 
erally, and General Washington and Col. Davie, in particular, scoun- 


104. Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


drels,” and asserted that he thought Washington “the first and best 
character in the world” and Davie “a valuable member of the com- 
munity.” William Hooper, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, tried in vain for a seat in the Convention. Other men 
as distinguished as he met a similar fate. Among those who were thus 
rejected was no less a leader than Richard Caswell, whose defeat in 
Dobbs county was the climax of the campaign. 


In 1788 the present counties of Lenoir, Greene and Wayne comprised 
Dobbs County with Kinston as the county seat. When the election was 
called to elect delegates to the Convention at Hillsborough, interest in 
the new form of government had reached its height. Copies of the 
Constitution had been scattered over the country printed on broadsides 
and in newspapers, so the people had had the opportunity to be well- 
informed as to the issues involved. Those who could not read or could 
not understand the provisions of the document listened eagerly to others 
discourse upon it and later passed on the arguments they had heard. 
Six states had already ratified, so there was strong probability that the 
new plan would go into effect. Most of the men of wealth, education, 
and social and political prominence in the county were for the adoption 
of the Constitution. The majority of the people, however, were loth 
to accept any change in the form of government. 


Among the Federalist candidates, first and foremost was Richard 
Caswell, who would surely reflect honor on any gathering. He was not 
only one of the leading men of the state at that time, but he is one 
of the most prominent men in the entire history of North Carolina. 
Coming to North Carolina from Maryland as a young man, he started 
on a career that extended over forty years of public life, during which 
time he was accorded almost every honor that the state could bestow. 
He was speaker of the Assembly, colonial treasurer, delegate to the 
Continental Congress, president of the Provincial Congress, and presi- 
dent of the Constitutional Convention of 1776 which adopted the State 
Constitution; he took a prominent part in military affairs, serving 
against the Regulators at Alamance, against the Highlanders at Moore’s 
Creek Bridge, and with Gates in his disastrous campaign against Corn- 
wallis which at Camden ended in the worst defeat ever sustained by an 
American army. Largely due to his military fame, he was chosen the 
first governor of North Carolina after independence was declared, and 
was reelected six times. Such was the man who wished to serve his 
state in the Convention that was to decide the future relations of North 


Strate Lirrrary anp Histortcan Association 105 


Carolina to the union, but who was defeated by candidates whose sole 
claim to fame is that they were Caswell’s opponents in the election. In 
the sketch of Caswell in the Biographical History of North Carolina, 
it is stated that it was largely through his influence that North Carolina 
rejected the Federal Constitution as it was first presented. This state- 
ment is no doubt founded on Caswell’s refusal to serve in the Constitu- 
tional Convention at Philadelphia. The explanation that Caswell him- 
self made for declining to attend the Convention was that “from my 
bad state of health about the time appointed for the meeting of the 
Convention it was impracticable for me to attend.” His subsequent 
course toward the Constitution leaves us no room to doubt that this was 
his real reason. In the account of the election which I am going to re- 
late, I shall show not only that Caswell ran on the Federalist ticket, 
but also that his supporters were willing to use any means to have him 
seated in the Convention that was to consider the Constitution. 


With Caswell, there was his brother-in-law, John Herritage, on whose 
family estate the town of Kinston had been laid out. He was a man of 
influence in the county, having served as commissioner for erecting the 
county buildings, and along with Caswell was a trustee of Dobbs Acad- 
emy, and “trustee and director” of the town of Kinston. Almost 
rivaling Caswell in prominence was James Glasgow, who had served as 
Secretary of State since 1777. In the Revolutionary period he had 
served as assistant secretary of the Provincial Congress and secretary of 
the Council of Safety. Later he was on the committee to state the 
Revolutionary accounts of North Carolina with the United States and 
was clerk to the claims committee. He also served the county in various 
ways. The other two Federalist candidates, Bryan Whitfield and Ben- 
jamin Sheppard, had held important positions in both the county and 
the state. Since Dobbs county was formed in 1760 Richard Caswell had 
represented it in fifteen of the twenty-four general assemblies, and dur- 
ing each of the last eight years one or more of these Federalist candi- 
dates had represented the county as senator or as commoner. It would 
have been hard, indeed, to find men of better training and experience to 
help North Carolina determine her attitude toward the new Constitution. 


In spite of their varied careers in politics, however, the Federalist 
candidates in Dobbs county displayed less political sagacity than their 
more inexperienced opponents. They failed to realize the necessity of 
presenting a solid front, but allowed some of their none-too-numerous 


106 Twenty-First ANNUAL SEssion 


supporters to fritter away part of their strength by casting a few merely 
complimentary votes for men closely allied with them by family. No 
such over-confidence prevailed in the Anti-Federalist campaign. They 
presented only five candidates and lined up behind them in solid array. 
Whereas Richard Caswell and James Glasgow received twenty-two more 
votes than John Herritage, there was a difference of only five between 
the votes of the highest and the lowest Anti-Federalist candidates. The 
practically solid Anti-Federalist vote went for Moses Westbrook, Jacob 
Johnson, Isaac Croom, Absalom Price, and Abraham Baker. So far as 
I have been able to find in the records, these men were with no political 
experience with the one exception of Moses Westbrook, who had repre- 
sented the county one term in the House of Commons. The voters of 
Dobbs county were to choose between men who for years had held prom- 
inent positions in the state and others who, if they had ability, had not 
had the opportunity to display it. 


Benjamin Caswell, sheriff of Dobbs county, feeling the great responsi- 
bility resting upon him, took every precaution to have a fair election. 
The box used to receive the votes, being originally meant to receive the 
votes for the Senate and the House of Commons, was divided into two 
receptacles, each with a separate lid, one for receiving the votes for 
senator, the other for receiving the votes for commoners. During the 
voting for delegates to the Convention, all the ballots were put in one 
side, the other side being sealed. Ordinarily each ballot as it was 
counted was torn in two and thrown away, but to insure a fair count in 
the present election Sheriff Caswell arranged to have the ballots pre- 
served after being counted and deposited in the vacant side of the 
ballot box. Thus they would be ready for a recount in the event of a 
disputed election. 


On Saturday evening after the ballotting had closed, the poorly ven- 
tilated, dimly lighted court-room was half-filled with men anxiously 
watching the counting of the votes. As each name was called out and 
recorded, speculation as to the outcome rose to a high pitch. Desultory 
conversation ceased and those present gathered more closely around the 
group recording the votes. Frederick Baker, probably a brother of 
Candidate Baker, was holding a candle near the table eagerly watching 
the returns. To the delight of the Anti-Federalists the election was 
going in favor of their candidates, and as name after name was called 
out, there could be no doubt as to the outcome. The total number of 


Strate Lirerary anp Historicat Association 107 


ballots cast was 372, each elector voting for five candidates; the count- 
ing of the first 282 showed the following results: 


FEDERALISTS 
Richard Caswellliv vcsna teary weve eee ay leh aoe 120 
TAMES GHAS SO Ws Veer erences eh ie eo ee eee ee 120 
Benjamin 7Sheppandssan epee weet iene eee 110 
BGAN WHUCHELA ia) vy Xu Sip aces eaten ee crn en iota cree ues ie 106 
VOhniMTerritagse ances y ako apiece a eepes eeu nei ane 98 


ANTI-FEDERALISTS 


MOSES HWIEStDE OOK, Ui crc sascce coon ae Sone eee inane 159 
WACOD AION SOME Repay ake apes auepe al A eTA Ce ee ean 158 
LUSENCH OR (OTA oo) 0s Oe rc DOE icCROTClY Obie OF CR ERE Ietete tc Sees Be Uy / 
MDsallomy PLIGCEs css sca cara atciose cate aie wallets hci 156 
AD rahamy rR Biers 4 Sit cis une celia: Sve seca an Meiaea 154 


In addition to these there were a few scattering Federalist votes. 


The Federalists were deeply chagrined. Was it possible that Richard 
Caswell, ex-governor, and James Glasgow, even then the Secretary of 
State, could be defeated by such obscure and inexperienced men? The 
very thought made them blush for their county! “Poor Dobbs, Poor 
Dobbs,” they moaned as they moved here and there among the crowd, 
“Preacher Baker before Governor Caswell!” They decried the character 
and ability of their successful opponents and cursed the folly of the 
people. The Anti-Federalists, of course, did not tamely submit to these 
insults. Caswell and Glasgow, no doubt, had done good service, but 
their efforts would not be called for in this case. There would be others 
to represent Dobbs county at Hillsborough. Their air of confidence 
roiled the supporters of the losing candidates, who began to utter threats. 
Feeling rose to fever heat. But the Federalist leaders realized that the 
erisis called for something more than futile lamentations and unexecuted 
threats. Action—prompt, bold, decisive—alone could save the day, and 
action was quickly agreed upon. Loudly declaring that Neall Hopkins, 
one of the inspectors of the election, was showing too much interest in 


the results, an angry Federalist strode up to the bench on which sat the. 


ballot box, and threatened him with blows, and, as simultaneously 
another Federalist struck the candle from Frederick Baker’s hand, 
Inspector Hopkins prudently hastened to seek safety through an open 
window. Instantly all the other candles were knocked over, and the 
room was left in utter darkness. 

For a moment the startled crowd was quiet. Then, suddenly, pande- 
monium broke loose. The sound of curses and blows was heard above 
the uproar. Sheriff Caswell, endeavoring to guard the ballot-box, wais 


108 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


knocked almost senseless, and the box was forcibly and violently 
wrenched from him and carried away. Thereupon Benjamin Sheppard, 
one of the Federalist candidates, turning to his supporters, exclaimed, 
“Well done, Boys, now we'll have a new Election Nes 


The morning after the riot, the ballot box was found near the jail, 
broken to pieces with the tickets scattered around it on the ground. 
Curiosity led many people to the place to see the remains of the evidence 
that might have elected Anti-Federalists to seats in the State Con- 
vention. Robert White declared that he picked up “a number of 
Scrolls or Tickets which appeared to be done up in the Manner they 
Commonly are when put in the box;” and that of the sixty-three scrolls 
that he examined sixty-two had the names of Johnson, Baker, West- 
brook, Price and Croom written on them. But Charles Markland Jr., 
passing the jail, saw the remains of the box and the tickets, some of 
which were open and the others rolled up. He collected as many as he 
conveniently could and carried them to Luther Spalding’s tavern, where 
he observed to Spalding that there seemed to be more tickets for the 
Federalist candidates than for the others. Spalding upon counting 
some of the votes remarked that if the election had been broken up by 
members of the Federalist party they did wrong, for it seeemd from the 
uncounted ballots that the Federalist candidates would have been elected. 

The Federalists had prevented the success of their opponents, but that 
was not sufficient,—they must have Federalist delegates to represent the 
county. Accordingly they appealed to Samuel Johnston, the Federalist 
governor, to order a new election. J ohnston promptly complied with 
the request, but, doubtful of his authority in the matter, merely “recom- 
mended” to the sheriff to hold another election. -The reason he gave 
in his order to the sheriff was that “it hath been made appear to me that 
the Ballots taken by you at the late General Election for Delegates to 
the State Convention, were forceably & violently seized and taken from 
you by some riotous and disorderly persons, so that you had it not in 
your power to ascertain who were the persons who had the greatest 
number of Votes, and therefore cannot make a Return of any Persons as 
duly elected to serve as delegates in the said Convention.” The Governor 
also said that “a number of respectable Inhabitants of the said county 
have by Petition, represented to me, that the Inhabitants of the said 
County are desirous that I should appoint another Day for the purpose 
of electing Delegates to represent them in the said Convention. 

«J do therefore recommend to such of the Inhabitants of Dobbs 
County aforesaid, as are entitled to vote for Representatives in the 
house of Commons to meet at the Court House of the said County on 


Srate Literary anp Historica AssocrIaTION 109 


the fourteenth & fifteenth days of July next, then and there to elect 
five Freeholders to represent them in the State Convention to be held at 
the Town of Hillsborough on the third Monday in July next; and I do 
hereby require you to give notice to the Inhabitants to meet accordingly, 
and that you attend at the same time & place and conduct the said 
Election in the manner prescribed by the Resolve of the last General 
Assembly held at Tarborough.” 


The sheriff accordingly held the election as “recommended” by His 
Excellency. No cognizance was taken of the identity of the “riotous 
and disorderly persons” who had broken up the former election, and how 
many of the “respectable inhabitants” really desired such a new election 
may be inferred from the number who took part in it. Whereas 372 
votes were cast in the March election, only 85 were cast in the July 
election, all the Anti-Federalists, for fear of countenancing an illegal 
procedure, remaining away from the polls. Accordingly, Federalist 
candidates were chosen without opposition and Richard Caswell, James 
Glasgow, Winston Caswell, Benjamin Sheppard, and Nathan Lassiter 
were given certificates of election. 


When the Convention convened at Hillsborough July 21, these five 
Federalists appeared to take their seats. A strong protest against seat- 
ing them was presented by the Anti-Federalists of Dobbs county. Upon 
the motion of William Lenoir of Wilkes County, which was seconded 
by Thomas Person of Granville, the returns for Dobbs county were read. 
Lenoir then presented a petition signed by 248 men. A number of these 
men, not being able to write, made their marks. They protested against 
the means used by 85 men of the county to send Federalist delegates to 
the Convention. In the petition they stated how the first election had 
been broken up by a riot because it was apparent that the Anti- 
Federalist candidates would be elected, and how the Federalists had in- 
duced the Governor to grant a new election. The petitioners claimed 
that the Governor had exceeded his power in calling a second election 
and asked that Johnson, Baker, Westbrook, Price and Croom be seated 
in the Convention. 


Richard Dobbs Spaight of Craven presented the deposition of Sheriff 
Benjamin Caswell, in which he stated what had taken place at the March 
election, together with a poll of the election so that the Convention 
would have the basis for judging the result. Spaight also presented the 
depositions of William Croom, Neall Hopkins, Robert White, John 
Hartsfield, Job Smith and Frederick Baker, giving the details of the 
election, the riot, and the tickets that were found the next morning. 
Stephen Cabarrus of Chowan presented the depositions of Charles Mark- 


110 Twenty-First ANNUAL SEssION 


land, Jr., and Luther Spalding in regard to the votes that were picked 
up the day after the election, upholding the contentions of the Federal- 
ists. 

The petition and the various depositions were referred to the com- 
mittee of elections which was composed of eleven Federalists and six- 
teen Anti-Federalists. Among them were Samuel Spencer, David Cald- 
well, Thomas Person, William R. Davie, Isaac Gregory, James Iredell, 
Stephen Cabarrus, and Archibald Maclaine. On July 23, Gregory pre- 
sented to the Convention the report of the committee, which recom- 
mended “that the sitting members returned from the county of Dobbs 
vacate their seats, as it does not appear that a majority of the county 
approved of a new election under the recommendation of his excellency 
the governor, but the contrary is more probable.” On the petition of 
the Anti-Federalists that their candidates be seated, the committee re- 
ported that, because of the riot at the March election, “the sheriff could 
have made no return of any five members elected, nor was there any 
evidence before the committee by which they could determine with cer- 
tainty, which candidates had a majority of the votes of the other electors. 
The committee was therefore of opinion, that the first election is void as 
well as the latter.” 

To this report the Convention agreed. Dobbs county, consequently, 
was unrepresented in the North Carolina Convention that first consid- 
ered the Federal Constitution and two of the foremost citizens of the 
state were unseated. The Federalists of Dobbs County had been able to 
keep their opponents from the Convention but not to seat their own 
candidates. The result, however, had no effect upon the deliberations 
of the Convention, which refused to ratify the new Constitution by a 
majority of 184 to 84. Accordingly, when George Washington was 
inaugurated President of the United States, the newspapers of the time 
listed North Carolina as a “foreign state.” The epithet was unpalatable 
to her people and before the year was out they called a second con- 
vention which re-instated North Carolina to her rightful place in the 
sisterhood of states. 


SOURCES.—The sources consulted in the preparation of this essay are: 
State Records of North Carolina, Vols. XI-XXV; the original depositions, 
petitions, etc., filed in “The Papers of the Convention of 1788” (Collections 
of the North Carolina Historical Commission); photostat copies of con- 
temporaneous North Carolina newspapers in the collections of the North 
Carolina Historical Commission; the Charles E. Johnson Manuscripts (Col- 
lections of the North Carolina Historical Commission); McRee, Griffith J., 


Srate LirEerary anp HistoricaL AssocraTIon i113 


“The iLife and Correspondence of James Iredell’; Elliot’s “Debates on the 
Federal Constitution, 1787-88’; Ashe, S. A. (editor) “Biographical History 
of North Carolina,” 8 vols.; Connor, R. D. W. (compiler) “North Carolina 
Manual, 1913”; Connor, H. G., “The Conventions of 1788 and 1789 and the 
Federal Constitution,’ (North Carolina Booklet, Vol. IV. No. 4); Battle, 
Kemp, P., “Trial of James Glasgow and the Supreme Court of North Caro- 
lina,” (North Carolina Booklet, Vol. III. No. 1); Connor, R. D. W., “History 
of North Carolina—Colonial and Revolutionary Periods”; Boyd, W. K., “Hist- 
ory of North Carolina—The Federal Period’; Ashe, S. A., “History of North 
Carolina,” Vol. I; Wagstaff, H. M., “Federalism in North Carolina’ (James 
Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. 9, No. 2), and “William Richardson Davie 
and Federalism in North Carolina” (Bulletin 28, Publications N. C. His- 
torical Commission.). 


Raleigh and Roanoke 


By Joun JorpAan DOUGLASS. 


Knight of famed Albion’s Golden Age, 
When Shakespeare sang his deathless song, 
Bright shines thy name upon the page 

Amid the crowned immortal throng: 
Statesman, soldier, patron of the sea, 

Fain would I touch my humble harp to thee! 


Clear-visioned like the great Genoese, 

No seas thy conquering courage tombed; 
Faith gave thee thrice her magic keys 
To ope the gates where freedom bloomed 
On land remote from courts and kings, 
Wide-measured by the eagle’s wings. 


Sea-King, who watched the red-speared dawns 
Break through nights’ nubian bands, 
Who played with death with ships as pawns 


. Held in the sea’s blue hands. 


Thy spirit sought the western star, 
Where gleamed the sunset’s golden bar. 


Sea-seer whose ships sailed to our land 
Ere, ’mid New England’s snows, 

Was kindled by the Pilgrim’s hand 
Freedom’s watch-fire that still glows, 
We come in varied walks and ways 

To sing thy noble praise. 


Saw there in vision this great State, 

Beyond the isle which, like a rose, 

Blooms fair beside the sea’s green gate 

Through which the blue tide comes and goes— 
Roanoke, that sparkling emerald gem 

In Neptune’s diadem! 


Strate Lirrrary anp Historicat Association 113 


Was it thy province to behold, 

As seer and prophet oft times see, 
A land of freemen, leal and bold, 
To thrill the world with Liberty— 
A State whose patriots first arose 
Near where the red Catawba flows! 


Who first in Mecklenburg declared 

The Western world, by right, was free— 
Who boldly signed their names, and dared 
To question tyranny! 

Ere Freedom’s Excalibur, bright and keen, 
Flashed in the hands of Greene! 


Mayhap, thine was the prophet’s gaze 
Beyond the tawdry gild of thrones, 
Where ’mid Roanoke’s moss-tangled maze, 
Rose Freedom’s altar stones; 

Roanoke, harp of the singing sea 

That chants thy threnody. 


White-winged thy ships, like wild birds, fared 
Across the sea to far Roanoke; 

Of thee who dreamed, and, dreaming, dared 
The Wonder of the New World broke; 

There on the balmy, breeze-swept shore 

The New World’s open door. 


Roanoke, where once the red man roamed, 
In stoic solitude, 

And built near where the wild sea foamed 
His wigwam strange and crude: 

The first to feel the white man’s tread, 

To shroud his stern, heroic dead. 


To thee sailed ships one memoried day, 
Like weird unearthly birds, 

They rode thy placid sheltered bay, 
Whose bright blue border girds 

The wave-kissed shore whose stately trees 
Call to the wandering gypsy breeze. 


114 


Twenty-First ANNUAL SEssION 


The eagle, perched on lofty crest, 
Looked down with restless eye, 
Screamed to the fledglings in her nest 
And sought the cloud plumed sky, 
Strong-winged, majestic, meant to be 
The symbol of the free! 


The brown doe, startled at her drink, 
Turned toward the tangled brake, 
Shot like an arrow from the brink 
Where lay the lilied lake; 

And with her fawn far coverts sought, 
In shadowy silence deeper wrought. 


The night-hawk warned her wandering mate 
High in a ghostly oak; 

And silence like some spell of fate 

Lay deep upon Roanoke. 

Where stretched the shimmering strand of gold 
The New World met the storied old. 


High sailed the moon, the Night’s corsair ; 
In anchored calm the strange ships rode; 
The sails close-reefed ; the mast-poles bare; 
The sea-wind sang its solemn ode: 

’Neath starry skies the New World slept, 
Its fierce wild cries unleashed, unkept. 


No more would maids of Manteo 

In dark-eyed splendor reign alone; 

Soon would the face, white like the snow, 
Call all the origin wild its own: 

Soon, soon, the red rose droop and die; 
Ne’er with the conquering lily vie! 


By ebon pool, in sylvan glade, 

Etched with the gold of filtered light, 
Once dreamed the graceful Indian maid 
Till day flowed purple into night, 

And o’er the gray sea, hedged with gloom, 
Saw dawn’s first roses bloom. 


Srate Literary anp Hisroricat AssocrlaTIoN 


Near by the sea a camp-fire burned, 
Its lambent streamers leaping high; 
And then a dusky maiden turned 

As turns the brown doe’s startled eye; 
Clung like a wild vine close to him, 
Whose stoic silence mocked her whim. 


The light of doom: no more she gazed 
Within the cypress-shadowed stream, 

But like a wild thing, hushed, amazed, 
Passed like the wan moon’s sickly gleam, 
When ’gainst the sky the smoke-plumes tower: 
So passed the woodland’s wild red flower. 


The red man’s feet would seek the west 
His soul to savage lyres attuned; 
Born in his heart a deep unrest 


Called where the wandering west wind crooned: 


No more his wild, weird cry was flung; 
The Iliad of his doom was sung. 


And if the march of man were o’er 

When world had answered call of world, 
The thunderous waves broke on that shore 
In sparkling splendor, glittering, pearled, 
Up from the sea, the bay’s blue marge 
Roanoke rose like a fairy barge. 


Roanoke, scene of historic years, 

Long gone with silent tread 

With him who dreamed in hemispheres, 
And sought thy shores to wed: 
Roanoke, lute by the lilting sea 

That sings of the Lost Colony. 


Here first the conquering white man came 
To light faith’s altar-fires; 

Here carved that strange and mystic name 
That even yet conspires 

To guard the secret darkly laid 

Beneath the woodland’s slumberous shade. 


115 


116 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


Mock-birds from tree and scented vine 
Poured, rippling liquid notes, 

That thrilled the white man’s ear like wine 
Gold poured from golden throats: 

And romance called with living lyre— 

Land of the hearts’ desire! 5 


Tt was the troth of East and West, 

A common sea between; 

A fathomed deep whose throbbing breast 
Shall ever intervene, 

Lest e’er in time, an alien flood 

Should cleave the white man’s welded blood. 


The eagle guards its wild waves here, 
The lion keeps them there, 

And France with golden lilied spear 
That pierced the world’s despair ; 
And Italy, proud, historic Rome, 
The Caesar’s regal home. 


Roanoke, fair isle we love the best, 
Clasped in the sea’s blue arms, 

Rare pearl upon the ocean’s breast 

With sweet and lingering charms, 

How oft our thoughts go wandering there 
Back to the babe Virginia Dare! 


We count it well that here was born 
The first white child upon our shore, 
Where love and honor still adorn, 
The brow of woman, as of yore: 

A sacred trust we shall defend 

With chivalrous courage till the end. 


Like him who spread his scarlet cloak 
Lest his fair queen should touch the earth, 
We spread our mantle on Roanoke 

When this sweet baby had her birth, 

The great seal of this sovereign State 
Symbolic of our estimate. 


Srate Literary anp HistoricaL AssocraTIon 


Roanoke, stile at our Eastern door 
Which first the white man knew, 
Blue bay whose sparkling bosom bore 
Sir Walter’s gallant crew, 

Thou wast the earnest of a state, 
Wide-peopled, strong and great. 


A state where Anglo-Saxons dwell, 

The purest in this land, 

Whose forbears wrested hill and dell 
From out of the red man’s hand, 

And drove the ploughshare deep and wide 
From sea to mountain side. 


A people native to the soil 

Unfettered, free from kings, 

Where manhood, crowned with honest toil 
To truth and honor clings: 

A people, sturdy, seeking heights 

Where burn the beacon-lights. 


A people who e’en yet shall write 

A new and nobler score 

Which temples tower loft and white, 
With wide and open door, 

To every youth who dares to dream 
Of learning’s fathomed stream. 


Brave, martyred soul, we greet thee here, 
Thine is the hero’s share; 

Time carves thy name with jeweled tear, 
Time carves it deep and fair. 

Carolina holds in honor yet 

Thy name with five score jewels set! 


Well has our State in honor called 

Her capital by thy name, 

The name that England once enthralled, 
But never steeped in shame: 

O Raleigh, Carolina’s chaliced love is thine; 
Green as her princeliest long leaf pine. 


117 


118 


Twenty-Fmsr Annvuat Session 


Rich as the gems within her west, — a 
Fair as her pearls in ocean’s breast, _ 
Sweet as her rarest full blown rose 
To thee her cornucopia flows: : 
Captain, Conqueror, Prophet of the sea, 
Carolina strikes her hundred harps to thee! 


The Bread and Butter Aspect of North Carolina History 


By D. D. CARROLL 


University of North Carolina 


The industrial history of North Carolina waits to be written. Here 
and there are choice bits of clear and effective statement in the field 
of economic happening, but there is not that connected, comprehensive | 
bringing together of vital facts in this realm which its importance 
merits, and without which our general interpretations will always be 
lame and halting. Indeed, our perception of trends and tendencies is 
dulled or is dangerously inaccurate without the stubborn, drab fact 
of economic circumstance. May I venture the opinion that, failing in 
this function of correctly detecting and indicating tendencies, the his- 
torian hazards his choicest contribution. 


I would not be misunderstood. I do not hold communion with that 
school of economists or group of historians who believe that all human 
action can be reduced to the low level of stomach causation, that all 
that man has done or ever will do finds its ultimate and only explanation 
in the struggle for economic advantage. My appetite for philosophy 
almost persuades me at this point to spend my allotted time in pursuing 
this fascinating fallacy,—not so much to prove its variance from the 
truth, as to show how powerful it has been in determining the bent of 
progress when processes of change were gripping at the fundamentals of 
the social structure. Emerson’s statement that “we are radicals before 
dinner and conservatives after dinner” certainly magnifies dinner as a 
potent force in shaping human history. And while it jars us somewhat 
to discover that a daring historian has, like a Don Quixote, charged at 
our Jeffersonian democracy with the poisoned lance of economic inter- 
pretation, it may make for ultimate truth in getting us to seek the 
source of the beauty of that fine flower of civic aspiration in the humus 
of earthy soil, as well as in the sunshine of political idealism. 


At this time, it is particularly important, that more accurate and in- 
clusive attention be given to the economic aspects of our life. During 
the past forty years, an Industrial Revolution has been going on in this. 
commonwealth which rivals, if it does not exceed in rate and degree of 
change, that which brought to England a Pandora’s box of problems. 
For half a century England groped and wrestled in darkness, before 
her historians diagnosed the real issues, and she was just beginning to 
understand and to deal accurately with them when the Great War came 


120 Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


on. It is not necessary to remind a gathering such as this, that it was 
largely the work of that fine group of economic historians and his- 
torical economists which revealed the true cause, nature, and extent of 
those problems. Perhaps all will admit that Britain has paid and will 
continue to pay dearly for not taking stock and keeping full records of 
her industrial life as the Revolution proceeded. May I venture the 
statement that at this moment we are immersed in an industrial trans- 
formation which is not only more rapid than that of England, but is 
carrying a twentieth century voltage. To continue this figure, the 
economic current in life has been stepped up to a voltage higher than 
our moral safety would probably justify, since selfish class interests 
grow deep and intense in its heat. But this makes it all the more im- 
portant to keep the records full and the interpretations clear. To make 
for greater complication, just as our industrial life was emerging from 
adolescence into the steady and enduring stride of healthy, confident 
youth, it imbibed a dangerously large dose of the war profits intoxicant, 
which sent it lunging forward, in a blundering stagger, dangerous alike 
to itself and every other phase of life to which it is related. To our 
normal problems, and they would have been troublesome and complex 
enough, we must add just at this time the aggravations of the “eold 
grey dawn of the morning after.” Disentangling, then, the normal 
peace-time trend from the abnormal war activity, and properly assessing 
each, is a task which must not be neglected. It must be done, too, before 
its recession into the past obscures the identity of the already tangled 
threads. 

It may not be out of place to indicate a few examples of the operation 
and comparative significance of industrial happening in directing the 
general trend of our history. The first tilt in the next political cam- 
paign is already being fought, and it is rather interesting to observe that 
it centers around the question “whether we are as rich as we thought we 
were or whether we are as poor as we hope we are not.” Somewhere 
between the reckless optimism of the one side and the shrewd and cal- 
culating pessimism of the other, the unbiased, well-balanced student may 
find the truth of economic fact, and put the deceivers, whichever they be 
or if both they be, to rout. The significant thing is that when the facts 
are established, their power will be almost irresistible. Witness, will 
you not, the narrow escape of that comprehensive program of social 
progress from threatened wreckage in our last legislature, when it faced 
price declines in cotton and tobacco. I dare say that as lifeless a thing 
as the price curve of those commodities will be a more meaningful 


“4 


State Literary anp Historicat ASsociIATION 121 


decoration of the page of history which records that forward step than 
the facsimile of any political declaration. 

There may be some difference of opinion as to the relative importance 
of the various indices of determining forces and the trend of dominant 
interest at the present time. Granting that when the economic equi- 
librium is upset the economic motive grips humanity most powerfully, 


‘there can be little possible disagreement concerning the portent of a 


Southern Tariff Congress Wketing in Greensboro, of scores of thousands 
of cooperative marketing contracts with teeth in them, or the Electric 
Power controversy, or a decRration of affiliation between the Farmers 
Union and the State Federation of Labor. (Announced day before 
yesterday and given two inches of space in one of our leading daily 
papers.) Around each of these and a host of others which might be 
mentioned is a halo of related fact and pregnant circumstance rich in 
historical content. 

In the less well-defined but more difficult field of slow change and 
gradual cumulative development, there are greater opportunities for 
far-sighted interpretation. The relation of expanding road mileage and 
motor transportation to social and civic life should be measured, anal- 
yzed, and stated. The passing of the first generation of cotton mill 
workers drawn from the individualistic mountaineer farmers and the 
tenants of the Piedmont region, and the ascendancy of their children, 
reared under strong group influences and numerous social restrictions, 
will give an impetus to class unity and economic friction, which will 
color our future in beauty or in blood. If our social policy be based 
on broad and thorough analysis of the facts and tendencies, then in 
beauty, but if it follows lines of ignorance or prejudice, then in blood. 

As we launch further and further into the complexities of this more 
highly industrialized and class conscious life we shall lose irreparably, if 
we leave the way by:which we came uncharted by full and accurate 
description and sound interpretation. The issues of the transition can- 
not long be evaded or postponed and the historian must perform his 
task with promptness and consecration. 

Some fine examples of work in this field are already available. The 
quality of Dr. Hamilton’s chapters on economic conditions in his treatise 
on Reconstruction is worthy of imitation in other periods, and Mitchell’s 
“Rise of the Cotton Industry in the South” certainly should prove a 
fine seed-bed for a more thorough-going treatise on the same subject in 
this state. An increasing number of biographical studies are appear- 
ing in which constructive business achievement takes its place along- 
side political statesmanship. In “A Builder of the New South,” Doctor 


122 Twenty-First ANNUAL SEssion 


Winston has made an evaluation in terms of an industrial romance 
which should be the beginning of a series. The choice articles in 
economic history appearing in the South Atlantic Quarterly should 
also be mentioned in this connection. 


But fine as these are, they are mere scraps in a long and varied story. 
Let me indicate a few general lines each of which will require a host 
of monographs. The history of agriculture would be full of solid value 
and rich in basic tendencies. Doubtless: dramatic possibilities, too 
would recur with surprising frequency in such far reaching matters as 
the competition of slave labor, “poor white trash,” and the small farm- 
ers of the Piedmont and mountain sections, not to speak of the tragedy 
of the tenant farmer of the later day. The perennial stock-law con- 
troversy and the activities of the Farmers Alliance and The Farmers 
Union would explain many a piece of cloak-room strategy in legislative 
domain. More important but less spectacular would be the long and 
stubborn fight against the law of diminishing returns in the use of 
agricultural land, with victory assured only by the enlistment of that 
increasing array of scientific farmers armed with crop rotaton, seed 
selection, soil analysis and similar up-to-date weapons. The evolution 
‘of transportation should also be full of interest, for here have appeared 
extremes of forward movement and stagnant isolation. Some of the 
earliest and best railroads were built within our state and few common- 
wealths can show a more interesting history of public ownership in 
this field. Some historian could well afford to give us facts about such 
things as freight discriminations, state rate regulation, “lost provinces,” 
the good roads movement, motor transportation and its effect socially 
and economically. Shall the youth of the future as he purchases gas 
at a wayside station not have his contempt softened by the knowledge 
that here a country store once furnished his forbears their choicest 
social centre and their most effective political forum? Our present pride 
-in the federal revenue records of our tobacco industry ought to create 
more definite curiosity concerning the early struggles of this giant indus- 
try. And who could withstand the desire to know the epic of that 
formerly blighted area—“The Sandhills”—after a journey through its 
blooming and blushing orchards, vineyards, and melon fields? Would it 
be heresy to say that in the articles of agreement between striking 
laborers and stubborn capitalists may be a more profound and significant 
index of the future than in any declaration of political independence? 
Many more such lines of research and interpretation might be enum- 


Strate Literary anp Historicat Association 123 


erated but these few indicate the amount of light which may be thrown 
by economic happening on the nature of the seed-bed of social progress 
and political evolution. - 

The intricately interwoven and mutually interacting elements make it 
a difficult task, but drab and uninspiring at first sight, the richness of 
content which would soon appear will bring adequate compensation not 
to speak of its value in giving soundings in dangerous waters and in 
charting the safe course for the future of the state. May-I thus chal- 
lenge you to the gathering of the raw materials for the production of 
the constituent parts of a comprehensive industrial history of North 
Carolina which will rival in fascination and stirring movement the 
record of any other phase of our life? Some later master hand must 
have these strong and varied threads if he is to weave a sound basic 
fabric in the unending tapestry of our state’s achievement. 


Members of the State Literary and Historical Association 
of North Carolina 


John M. Booker, Chapel Hill 
Louis M. Bourne, Asheville 

J. D. Boushall, Raleigh 

John H. Boushall, Raleigh 
Stephen Bragaw, Washington 

Dr. E. C. Branson, Chapel Hill 

J. C. Braswell, Rocky Mount 

W. E. Breese, Brevard 

Dr. Charles E. Brewer, Raleigh 
Mrs. George Alston, Raleigh Miss Elizabeth Briggs, Raleigh 
Dr. Albert Anderson, Raleigh W. G. Briggs, Raleigh 

Mrs. John H. Anderson, Fayetteville T. H. Briggs, Raleigh 

A. B. Andrews, Raleigh Mrs. T. H. Briggs, Raleigh 

Mrs. A. B. Andrews, Raleigh Hon. §. M. Brinson, Washington, D. C. 
Miss Augusta Andrews, Raleigh Col. J. L. Bridgers, Tarboro 

Miss Jane Andrews, Raleigh Miss Kate Broadfoot, Fayetteville 
Miss Martha Andrews, Raleigh L. C. Brogden, Raleigh 

William J. Andrews, Raleigh Mrs. A. L. Brooks, Greensboro 
Mrs. William J. Andrews, Raleigh F. H. Brooks, Smithfield 

Ww. J. Armfield, High Point Miss Carrie Broughton, Raleigh 
Rev. C. A. Ashby, Raleigh J. M. Broughton, Raleigh 

Capt. S. A. Ashe, Raleigh Dr. F. C. Brown, Durham 

Mrs. D. M. Ausley, Statesville Joseph G. Brown, Raleigh 

E. F. Aydlette, Elizabeth City Col. J. F. Bruton, Wilson 

Mrs. Henry T. Bahnson, Winston-SalemMrs. John F. Bruton, Wilson 

Miss Mattie H. Bailey, Raleigh J. Dempsey Bullock, Wilson 

Mrs. A. L. Baker, Raleigh A. L. Bulwinkle, Gastonia 

Rev. M. A. Barber, Raleigh Hon. W. P. Bynum, Greensboro 
George Gordon Battle, New York City Col. Bennehan Cameron, Stagville 
S. Westray Battle, Asheville Mrs. Bennehan Cameron, Stagville 
Mrs. S. Westray Battle, Asheville Miss Rebecca Cameron, Hillsboro 
Thomas H. Battle, Rocky. Mount J. O. Carr, Wilmington 

A. P. Bauman, Raleigh Gen. Julian S. Carr, Durham 

E. C. Beddingfield, Raleigh W. F. Carr, Durham 


Junius G. Adams, Asheville 

Dr. Randolph G. Adams, Durham 
A. E. Akers, Roanoke Rapids 

Ww. H. Albright, Liberty 

Charles L. Alexander, Charlotte 
Miss Julia Alexander, Charlotte 

Miss Violet Alexander, Charlotte 
A. T. Allen, Salisbury 

Ivey Allen, Louisburg 


John D. Bellamy, Wilmington 
Mrs. T. W. Bickett, Raleigh 

J. Crawford Biggs, Raleigh 
Mrs. J. Crawford Biggs, Raleigh 
Miss Anna M. Blair, Monroe 

J. J. Blair, Raleigh 

William A. Blair, Winston-Salem 
Mrs. C. P. Blalock, Raleigh 

O. G. Boisseau, Holden, Mo. 
Hon. W. M. Bond, Edenton 


Bishop Jos. B. Cheshire, Raleigh 
Mrs. Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh 
Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr., Raleigh 
Mrs. J. E. Clark, Washington 
Hon. Walter Clark, Raleigh 
Collier Cobb, Chapel Hill 

Mrs. R. L. Cobb, Tarboro 

Mrs. E. M. Cole, Charlotte 

Mrs. Will X. Coley, Raleigh 


Miss Jenn Winslow Coltrane, Concord 


Strate Lirerary AND 


Andrew J. Conner, Rich Square 
Hon. H. G. Connor, Wilson 
Mrs. H. G. Connor, Wilson 

R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill 
Charles L. Coon, Wilson 

W. R. Coppedge, Rockingham 
J. H. Cordon, Raleigh 

Mrs. J. H. Cordon, Raleigh 

J. M. Costner, Raleigh 

Bruce Cotten, Baltimore 

R. R. Cotten, Bruce 

Mrs. R. R. Cotten, Bruce 

G. V. Cowper, Kinston 

Col. Albert L. Cox, Raleigh 
Miss Clara I. Cox, High Point 
J. Elwood Cox, High Point 
Burton Craige, Winston-Salem 
W. J. Craig, Wilmington 

W. C. Cram, Raleigh 

W. C. Cram, Jr., Raleigh 


Historicat Association 125 


Miss Winifred Faison, Faison 

Rev. J. S. Farmer, Raleigh 

Hon. G. S. Ferguson, Waynesville 
W. W. Flowers, Durham 

Mrs. J. A. Fore, Charlotte 

J. L. Fountain, Raleigh 

Mrs. J. L. Fountain, Raleigh 

Dr. J. I Foust, Greensboro 

Mrs. Samuel Fowle, Washington 
Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem 
Col. John W. Fries, Winston-Salem 
H. BE. Fries, Winston-Salem 

Miss Susan Fulghum, Goldsboro 

T. B. Fuller, Durham 

E. L. Gaither, Mocksville 

Hon. S. M.. Gattis, Hillsboro 

Dr. W. H. Glasson, Durham 

Mrs. George C. Goodman, Mooresville 
E. McK. Goodwin, Morganton 
Henry A. Grady, Clinton 


Mrs. Ethel T. Crittenden, Wake Forest Hon. A. W. Graham, Oxford 


Mrs. A. B. Croom, Jr., Wilmington 

E. B. Crow, Raleigh 

Ernest Cruikshank, Columbia, Tenn. 

F. B. Dancy, Baltimore, Md. 

W. E. Daniel, Weldon 

Hon. F. A. Daniels, Goldsboro 

Hon. Josephus Daniels, Raleigh 

EH. L. Baxter Davidson, Charlotte 

Miss May Hill Davis, Raleigh 

Miss Penelope Davis, Raleigh 

Miss Sallie Joyner Davis, Greenville 

Thomas W. Davis, Wilmington 

Miss Daisy Denson, Raleigh 

L. A. Denson, Raleigh 

Miss Mary F. DeVane, Goldsboro 

Clyde Douglass, Raleigh 

Rev. John Jordan Douglass, 
Wadesboro 

Rev. Robert B. Drane, Edenton 

Mrs. BE. C. Duncan, Raleigh 

Mrs. L. P. Duncan, Raleigh 

J.C. B.Ehringhaus, Elizabeth City 

Theo. G. Empie, Wilmington 

Mrs. Sadie Smedes Erwin, Durham 

R. O. Everett, Durham 

W. N. Everett, Rockingham 

H. E. Faison, Clinton 

Mrs. I. W. Faison, Charlotte 


Miss Mary O. Graham, Raleigh 

Hon. W. A. Graham, Raleigh 

Mrs. William A. Graham, Edenton 

Miss Isabel Graves, Mount Airy 

James A. Gray, Winston-Salem 

Mrs. James A. Gray 

H. T. Greenleaf, Elizabeth City 

Miss Lennie Greenlee, Old Fort 

R. L. Greenlee, Marion 

Greensboro Public Library, Greensboro 

Mrs. B. H. Griffin, Raleigh 

I. C. Griffin, Shelby 

Lee Griffin, Monroe 

Col. J. Bryan Grimes, Raleigh 

Mrs. Gordon Hackett, North 
Wilkesboro 

Hon. HE. J. Hale, Fayetteville 

B. F. Hall, Wilmington 

Miss Susan BE. Hall, Wilmington 

William C. Hammer, Ashboro 

Dr. J.G.deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill 

Miss Rosa Hamilton, Clayton 

Dr. Ira M. Hardy, Kinston 

C. J. Harris, Asheville 

Mrs. J. C. L. Harris, Raleigh 

Dr. Thomas P. Harrison, Raleigh 

Mrs. Thomas P. Harrison, Raleigh 

C. Felix Harvey, Kinston 


126 


Mrs. C. Felix Harvey, Kinston 

Ernest Haywood, Raleigh 

F. P. Haywood, Raleigh 

M. DeL.. Haywood, Raleigh 

R. W. Haywood, Raleigh 

Mrs. John S. Henderson, Salisbury 

F. R. Hewitt, Asheville 

Miss Georgia Hicks, Faison 

Henry T. Hicks, Raleigh 

T. T. Hicks, Henderson 

Dr. D. H. Hill, Raleigh 

John Sprunt Hill, Durham 

Mrs. W. T. Hines, Kinston 

Mrs. J. W. Hinsdale, Raleigh 

Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton, Raleigh 

L. L. Hobbs, Guilford College 

Hon. W. A. Hoke, Raleigh 

C. W. Horne, Clayton 

Dr. H. H. Horne, New York City 

J. A. Hoskins, Summerfield 

George Howe, Chapel Hill 

Rey. Andrew J. Howell, Whiteville 

D. E. Hudgins, Marion 

Rey. A. B. Hunter, Raleigh 

Carey J. Hunter, Raleigh 

Mrs. Carey J. Hunter, Raleigh 

J. Rufus Hunter, Raleigh 

Miss Louise Irby, Greensboro 

Miss Carrie M. Jackson, Pittsboro 

Mrs. H. W. Jackson, Richmond, Va. 

W. C. Jackson, Greensboro 

B. S. Jerman, Raleigh 

Col. Charles E. Johnson, Raleigh 

Mrs. Charles E. Johnson, Raleigh 

Charles E. Johnson, Jr., Raleigh 

Miss Mary Lynch Johnson, Raleigh 

Mrs. Katherine S. Johnston, 
Winston-Salem 

Southgate Jones, Durham 

W. N. Jones, Raleigh 

Z. K. Justice, Davidson 

Miss Elizabeth A. Kelly, Raleigh 

Woodus Kellum, Wilmington 

Paul S. Kennett, Elon College 

Horace Kephart, Bryson City 

B. W. Kilgore, Raleigh 

Robert R. King, Greensboro 

F. H. Koch, Chapel Hill 

Col. Wilson G. Lamb, Williamston 


Twenty-First ANNUAL SESSION 


Dr. W. T. Laprade, Durham 
William Latimer, Wilmington 

J. B. Lewis, Raleigh 

Dr. R. H. Lewis, Raleigh 

Thomas W. Lingle, Davidson 

S. Lipinsky, Asheville 

Henry E. Litchford, Richmond, Va. 
Mrs. H. A. London, Pittsboro 

H. M. London, Raleigh 

Mrs. H. M. London, Raleigh 

C. C. McAlister, Fayetteville 

Miss Mary McClellan, Raleigh 

J. G. McCormick, Wilmington 

J. G. McCormick, Wilmington 

J. R. McCrary, Lexington 

Mrs. M. G. McCubbins, Salisbury 
Mrs. Herbert McCullers, Clayton 
F. B. McDowell, Charlotte 

A. CG. McIntosh, Chapel Hill 

Mrs. Charles McKimmon, Raleigh 
W. B. McKoy, Wilmington 

A. W. McLean, Lumberton 

R. L. McMillan, Raleigh 

Mrs. R. L. McMillan, Raleigh 
Franklin McNeill, Raleigh 

Mrs. Franklin McNeill, Raleigh 
Donald McRae, Wilmington 

Mrs. T. F. Malloy, Asheville 

A. G. Mangum, Gastonia 

Clement Manly, Winston-Salem 
W. F. Marshall, Raleigh 

Mrs. B. Frank Mebane, Spray 
Mrs. L. J. Mewborne, Kinston 
Mrs. J. W. Miller, New York City 
Mrs. J. J. Misenheimer, Charlotte 
Mrs. BE. E. Moffitt, Richmond, Va. 
Judge W. A. Montgomery, Raleigh 
Mrs. James P. Moore, Salisbury 
Rev. W. W. Moore, Richmond, Va. 
John M. Morehead, Charlotte 

Mrs. John M. Morehead, Charlotte 
Mrs. F. O. Moring, Raleigh 

Mrs. Theo. S. Morrison, Asheville 
Hugh Morson, Raleigh 

Mrs. Beverly G. Moss, Washington 


Miss Lucile W. Murchison, New York 


City 


Mrs. Lucy Warren Myers, Washington 


Frank Nash, Raleigh 


Srate Literary anp Historican ASSOCIATION 127 


Q. K. Nimocks, Fayetteville 

Eric Norden, Wilmington 

Mrs. M. T. Norris, Raleigh 

G. A. Norwood, Goldsboro 

Jonas Oettinger, Wilson 

Hon. Lee S. Overman, Salisbury 

Miss Mary B. Palmer, Raleigh 

John A. Parker, Washington, D. C. 

Mrs. C. M. Parks, Tarboro 

Miss Rosa Paschal, Greenville 

Mrs. J. Lindsey Patterson, 
Winston-Salem 

Mrs. S. T. Peace, Henderson 

P. Pearsall, Wilmington 

Dr. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest 

Mrs. George Pell, Raleigh 

Mrs. R. L. Penn, Mount Airy 

E. F. Pescud, Raleigh 

Miss Annie F. Petty, Greensboro 

William §S. Pfohl, Winston-Salem 

H. N. Pharr, Charlotte 

Miss Cordelia Phifer, Charlotte 

Mrs. H. C. Pinnix, Oxford 

T. M. Pittman, Henderson 

Mrs. Charles M. Platt, Asheville 

Dr. Clarence Poe, Raleigh 

Mrs. Clarence Poe, Raleigh 

J. E. Pogue, Raleigh 

Tasker Polk, Warrenton 

Miss Eliza Pool, Raleigh 

Dr. Hubert Poteat, Wake Forest 

Miss Ida Poteat, Raleigh 

Dr. W. L. Poteat, Wake Forest 

Mrs. W. L. Poteat, Wake Forest 

Mrs. W. H. Potter, Boston, Mass. 

E. K. Powe, Durham 

Mrs. E. K. Powe, Durham 

W. R. Powell, Wake Forest 

Mrs. W. R. Powell, Wake Forest 

Col. Joseph Hyde Pratt, Chapel Hill 

Mrs. I. M. Proctor, Raleigh 

James H. Ramsay, Salisbury 

George J. Ramsey, Raleigh 

E. E. Randolph, Raleigh 

Mrs. R. B. Raney, Raleigh 

W.S. Rankin, Raleigh 

W. T. Reaves, Raleigh 

Miss Mattie Reese, Raleigh 

Mrs. W. N. Reynolds, Winston-Salem 


Dr. W. C. Riddick, Raleigh 

Dr. Paul H. Ringer, Asheville 

Miss Lida T. Rodman, Washington 

Rey. Howard E. Rondthaler, 
Winston-Salem 

Mrs. Howard E. Rondthaler, 
Winston-Salem 

Charles Root, Raleigh 

Ralph Rosenberg, Asheville 

Mrs. Ralph Rosenberg, Asheville 

Mrs. Maurice Rosenthal, Raleigh 

Hon. George Rountree, Wilmington 

Dr. H. A. Royster, Raleigh 

Dr. W. I. Royster, Raleigh 

William H. Ruffin, Louisburg 

Robert L. Ryburn, Shelby 

W. M. Sanders, Smithfield 

Paul W. Schenck, Greensboro 

Joe Seawell, Raleigh 

Miss. C. L. Shaffner, Winston-Salem 

Miss Cornelia Shaw, Davidson 

Shaw University, Raleigh 

Mrs. M. B. Sherwood, Raleigh 

Mrs. M. B. Shipp, Raleigh 

John A. Simpson, Raleigh 

Harry Skinner, Greenville 

Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest 

Hon. J. H. Small, Washington 

Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, Annapolis, Md. 

Dr. Charles Lee Smith, Raleigh 

Ed Chambers Smith, Raleigh 

Mrs. Ed Chambers Smith, Raleigh 

Miss Mary Shannon Smith, New York 
City 

Miss Mildred Smith, Raleigh 

W. A. Smith, Ansonville 

Willis Smith, City 

Dr. D. T. Smithwick, Louisburg 

Mrs. D. T. Smithwick, Louisburg 

Mrs. W. O. Spencer, Winston-Salem 

F. S. Spruill, Rocky Mount 

Dr. James Sprunt, Wilmington 

W. H. Sprunt, Wilmington 

J. F. Stanback, Raleigh 

Mrs. J. F. Stanback, Raleigh 

Hon. Charles M. Stedman, Greensboro 

George Stephens, Charlotte 

C. L. Stevens, Southport, 

Mrs. C. L. Stevens, Southport 


128 Twenty-First AnnuAL SEssION 


Mrs. F. L. Stevens, Urbana, Ill. J. L. Webb, Shelby 
Edward L. Stewart, Washington Miss Gertrude Weil, Goldsboro 
W. E. Stone, Raleigh Mrs. W. S. West, Raleigh 


Edmund Strudwick, Richmond, Va. Charles Whedbee, Hertford 
Mrs. Edmund Strudwick, Richmond, Miss Julia S. White, Guilford College 


Va. Mrs. E. L. Whitehead, Enfield 
R. C. Strudwick, Greensboro J. Frank Wilkes, Charlotte 
Hon. R. H. Sykes, Durham M. S. Willard, Wilmington 


F. L. Willcox, Florence, S. C. 
L. A. Williams, Chapel Hill 
R. R. Williams, Asheville 

S. E. Williams, Lexington 


Mrs. J. F. Taylor, Kinston 
Frank Thompson, Jacksonville 
Mrs. Jacksie Danields Thrash, Tarboro 


eatin ec: ae William H. Williamson, Raleigh 
=a ers RL oe a : J. Norman Wills, Greensboro 
Tuesday Afternoon Reading Club, H. V. Wilson, Chapel Hill 
Reidsville Dr. Louis R. Wilson, Chapel Hilt 
Mrs. V. EH. Turner, Raleigh J. W. Winborne, Marion 
Miss Cornelia Vanderbilt, Biltmore rs. J. M. Winfree, Raleigh 
Mrs. John Van Landingham, Charlotte Hon. Francis D. Winston 


Rev. R. T. Vann, Raleigh Hon. George T. Winston, Asheville 

C. L. Van Noppen, Greensboro Hon. R. W. Winston, Raleigh 

Mrs. C. L. Van Noppen, Greensboro J. H. Wisler, Moncure 

Dr. C. G. Vardell, Red Springs Dr. W. A. Withers, Raleigh 

Mrs. W. W. Vass, Raleigh Frank Wood, Edenton 

W. W. Vass, Raleigh J. G. Wood, Edenton 

Wachovia Historical Society, Mrs. F. A. Woodard, Wilson 
Winston-Salem W. F. Woodard, Wilson 


Mrs. Amos. J. Walker, New York City Mrs. W. F. Woodard, Wilson 
Mrs. J. A. Walker, Brownwood, Texas E. E. Wright, New Orleans, La. 
Zebulon V. Walser, Lexington W. H. Yarborough, Louisburg 
D. L. War, New Bern J. R. Young, Raleigh 


NINTH BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


North Carolina Historical Commission 


December 1, 1920, to 
November 30, 1922 


RALEIGH, N. C. 
EpwarDs & BROUGHTON PRINTING COMPANY 
Strate PRINTERS 
1923 


North Carolina Historical Commission 


J. Bryan Griuss, Chairman, Raleigh 


Frank Woop, Edenton 
M. C. S. Nosrz, Chapel Hill 
Tuomas M. Pirrman, Henderson 


Heriot Crarxson, Charlotte 


D. H. Hitt, Secretary, Raleigh 


Letter of Transmittal 


To His Excellency, 
Camerron Morrison, 
Governor of North Carolina. 

Sir:—I have the honor to submit herewith for your Excellency’s 
consideration the Biennial Report of the North Carolina Historical 
Commission, for December 1, 1920-November 30, 1922. 

Respectfully, 


J. Bryan Grimss, 
Chairman. 
Rateicu, N. C., January, 1923. 


BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


Secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission 
DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO NOVEMBER 30, 1922 


To Hon. J. Bryan Griues, Chairman, Messrs. Toomas M. Pirrman, 
M. C. S. Nosrz, Frank Woop anp Herior Crarxson, Com- 
missioners. 


GenTLEMEN :—I have the honor to submit the following report of 
the work of the North Carolina Historical Commission for the period 
December 1, 1920-November 30, 1922. 


ORGANIZATION 


There has been one change in the organization of the Commission. 
On November 16, 1922, D. H. Hill resigned his commission to become 
Secretary of the Historical Commission. To fill his unexpired term, 
the Governor appointed the same day Hon. Heriot Clarkson of Char- 
lotte. Hon. J. Bryan Grimes has continued as Chairman of the 
Commission for the whole period of this report. 

On August 31, 1921, Mr. R. D. W. Connor, who had been Secretary 
to the Commission since its inception in 1903, resigned his office to 
become Kenan Professor of History and Government in the University 
of North Carolina. The Commission elected to succeed Mr. Connor, 
D. H. Hill, who began his duties as Secretary on September 1, 1921. 

During the period covered by this report the following have com- 
posed the permanent staff of the office: 


OrFice Force 


Secretary, R. D. W. Connor (through August 31, 1921); D. H. Hill 
(September 1, 1921- ye 

Legislative Reference Librarian, H. M. London. 

Collector for the Hall of History, Fred A. Olds. 

Collector of World War Records, R. B. House. 

Restorer of Manuscripis, Mrs. J. M. Winfree. 

Stenographer, Miss Marjory Terrell. 


15] 


6 Nintu Birennrat Report 


Stenographer, Miss Sophie Busbee (through October 31, 1921). 
Stenographer, Mrs. W. J. Peele (since December 1, 1921). 
File Clerk, Mrs. W. S. West. 

Messenger, William Birdsall. 


The following were temporarily employed for special service : 


Assistant Legislative Reference Librarian, W. T. Joyner (January 
6-March 6, 1921. December 1-20, 1921). 

Copyist, Miss Alice Moffitt (December 1, 1920-August 31, 1921). 

Assistant File Clerk, Miss Sophie Busbee (since June 12, 1922). 

Compiler of Revolutionary Roster, Moses Amis (since March 1, 1922). 


DIVISION OF DOCUMENTS 
Executive Papers 


The papers of the following Governors, transferred from the Gov- 
ernor’s office, were properly arranged and filed: 
R. B. Glenn, 1905-1909. 
Locke Craig, 1913-1917. 
T. W. Bickett, 1917-1920. 


These papers total 93 cases; 1,000 pieces. In addition, the letter- 
book of Governor Bickett was edited and arranged with a view to 
publication. Additional papers were distributed among the Executive 
Papers previously arranged as follows: Richard Caswell, Samuel 
Johnston, W. W. Holden, Tod R. Caldwell, C. H. Brogden, Zebulon B. 
Vance, Thomas J. Jarvis, A. M. Scales, D. G. Fowle, T. M. Holt, 
Elias Carr, C. B. Aycock. They total 1,975 pieces. 


LxettrEr-Booxs 


Thirty-one letter-books were arranged in the papers of the following 
Governors : 
A. M. Scales, 1885-1889. 
D. G. Fowle, 1889-1891. 
Thomas M. Holt, 1891-1893. 
Elias Carr, 1893-1897. 
D. L. Russell, 1897-1901. 
W. W. Kitchin, 1909-1913. 


Warrant Booxs 


Six Warrant Books were arranged in the papers of the following 
Governors: 

David Stone, 1808-1810. 

Benjamin Smith, 1810-1811. 

William Hawkins, 1812-1814. 

William Miller, 1814-1817. 

John Branch, 1817-1820. 

Thomas J. Jarvis, 1879-1885. 


N. C. Hisrortcatr Commission a 


Minitary Papers 


The following military papers were arranged for use: 


Muster Rolls Militia, 1812-1815. 
Civil War Papers, 1860-1864. 
Devereux Papers, 1860-1864. 


They total 5,000 pieces. 


OrrictaL Boarps 


The following records of official boards were arranged for use: 


Board of Internal Improvements, 1819-1891. 
Secretary of State’s Papers, 1736-1800. 

Letters to the Secretary of State, 1729-1905. 
Literary Board, 1835-1868. 

Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1858-1888. 


They total 6,500 pieces. 


Recorps or TREASURER, CoMPTROLLER, AND AUDITOR 
Thirty-three volumes and 7,900 papers from the offices of the Treas- 
urer, Comptroller, and Auditor, 1790-1865, were classified, catalogued, 
and arranged for use. 


Oxtp Norra Carotina NEWSPAPERS 


Photostat copies of North Carolina newspapers prior to 1800 were 
arranged and catalogued by a descriptive list giving name, place, pub- 
lisher, date, number, and condition of each paper. 


Hisroricat Manuscripts 


The following collections of historical manuscripts were arranged 
for use: 
Charles P. Bolles Letter-books, 1846-1855. 
John H. Bryan Papers (197 pieces of new material), 1798-1870. 
Drury Lacy Papers, 1800-1883. 
Frederick Nash Papers, 1781-1858. 
David Clark Papers, 1820-1882. 
Gash Papers, 1816-1898. 
Wood John Hamlin Papers, 1762-1835. 


In addition to these, 7,556 papers have been properly distributed 
among collections previously arranged. 


Wortp War Recorps, 1914-1920 


The collection of over 100,000 items of World War Records was 
arranged for use. Among these, draft lists from the Local Boards 
totalling 55,100 names were alphabetized and copied for binding. 


8 Nintu Brenniat Report 


LEGISLATIVE PAPERS 


One hundred and thirty cases of Legislative Papers were classified 
and grouped by years. Legislative Papers from 1729 to 1778 were 
properly arranged. 


County REcorps 


Two hundred and twenty-three cases and volumes of county records 
were added to the county records now in possession of the Historical 
Commission. The collection of one thousand and eighty-six cases and 
volumes from fifty counties were arranged for use and catalogued as 
follows: 


COUNTY RECORDS IN ARCHIVES ROOM 


BEAUFORT: County Court Minutes, 1756-61. 


BERTIE: County Court Minutes, 1767-72; 1772-77; 1778-92; 1793- 
1801; 1802; 1803-05; 1805-07; 1808-13; 1813-18; 1818- 
22: 1822-82; 1832-41; 1842-43; 1842-53; 1853-67; 1868. 
Land Entries, 1778-96. 
Crown Dockets, 1762-65. 
Marriage Bonds. 


BRUNSWICK: County Court Minutes, 1782-1801; 1805-20; 1820-23; 
1824-30; 1831-39; 1839-45; 1845-52; 1850-59; 1866-68. 
Marriage Bonds. 
Wills, 1781-1822; 1822-27; 1828-47. 
Public School Records, 1841-60. 
Register of Officers’ bonds, 1796-1829. 


BUREE: County Court Minutes, 1807-18; 1818-29; 1830-34. 
Marriage Bonds. 
Court Papers, 1782-1842; 1783-1843. 
Wills, 1794-1866. 


BUNCOMBE: County Court Minutes, 1822-24. 
Trial Docket, 1796-1805. 
Marriage Records, 1851-1870. 


BUTE: County Court Minutes, 1767-76. 
Wills, 1764-79. 
Marriage Bonds. 
County Court Papers, 1765-69. 
Land Entries, 1778-79. 
Inventories of Estates, 1765-79. 


CABARRUS: Marriage Bonds. 


CAMDEN: County Court Minutes, 1855-68. 
Orphans’ Accounts, 1800-09. 


CARTERET: 


CASWELL: 
CHATHAM: 


CHOWAN: 


CoLUMBUS: 
CRAVEN: 


CUMBERLAND: 


CURRITUCK: 


DUPLIN: 


EDGECOMBE: 


FRANKLIN: 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission 9 


County Court Minutes, 1724-96; 1764-82; 1796-99; 1799- 
1804; 1804-13; 1813-20; 1820-24; 1824-26; 1826-27; 
1821-30; 1831-37; 1837-45; 1840-41; 1842-45; 1845-48; 
1849-52; 1852-58; 1858-68. 

Marriage Bonds. 

List of Taxables, 1802-1808; 1813-14; 1815-19. 

Grants and Deeds, 1717-75. 

Deeds, 1781-85. 

County Court Dockets, 1730-84. 

Miscellaneous Records, 1749-89. 


Marriage Bonds. 
County Court Minutes, 1811-16. 


Records, 1685-1805. 
County Court Petitions. 


County Court Minutes, 1838-40. 
Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1784-87; 1787-91; 1791-97; 1798- 
1800; 1801-94; 1805-08; 1808-10; 1811-12; 1810-16; 
1817-18; 1819-20; 1820-22; 1823-27; 1827-31; 1830-32; 
1831-35; 1836; 1836-38; 1838-39; 1838-40; 1840-42; 
1841-48; 1842-44; 1844-46; 1849-51; 1849-52; 1852-55; 
1854-56; 1856-59; 1857-60; 1860-65; 1863-66. 

Public Road Records, 1825-39; 1840-56. 

Tax Lists, 1777-80. 

Equity Minute Docket, Fayetteville District Court, 
1788-1829. 

Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1799-1803; 1803-30. 
Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1784-91; 1793-1808; 1801-04; 
1804-10; 1810-16; 1817-18; 1819-22; 1823-28; 1832-34; 
1835-37; 1837-38; 1840-43; 1843-45; 1845-46; 1851-52. 

Minutes of St. Gabriel’s Parish, 1800-17. 

Record of Assessments and Taxes by districts, 1783. 

Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1784-90. 

Sales and Inventories of Hstates, 1735-53; 1764-72; 
1792-94. 

Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1785-94; 1794-1800; 1800-05; 
1803-10; 1810-13; 1814-17; 1820; 1820-23; 1819-21; 
1820-24; 1822-24; 1825-27; 1831-36; 1836-40; 1840-44; 
1844-47; 1847-53. 

Lists of Taxables, 1804-22; 1823-36. 

Deeds, 1797-99. 

Marriage Bonds. 


10 


GATES: 


GUILFORD: 


GRANVILLE: 


HAYWOOD: 


HYDE: 


JOHNSTON: 
JONES: 
LENOIR: 
McDowELL: 
MECKLENBURG: 


NASH: 


NEw HANOVER: 


NORTHAMPTON: 


Ninta Bienn1at Report 


County Court Minutes, 1779-96; 1796-1815; 1815-30; 
1830-58; 1833-41; 1851-54; 1859-68. 

Trial and Reference Docket, 1784-86. 

Court Papers and Settlements of Estates, 1786-1806. 

Marriage Bonds. 


Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1786-89; 1796-99; 1800-02; 1803- 
06; 1806-10; 1810-18; 1813-16; 1816-18; 1818-20. 

Execution Docket, 1765-67. 

Land Entries, 1778-85. 

Trial Docket, 1764-67. 

Books of Taxables, 1796-1802; 1803-09. 


County Court Minutes, 1784-87; 1796-99; 1799-1802; 
1821-24. 

Marriage Bonds. 

Wills, 1735-1848. 

Deeds, 1720-1850. 

County Tax Book, 1784-1834. 

Deeds, Edgecombe Precinct and County, Bertie Pre- 
cinct, 1732-40. Halifax, 1759-1761. 

County Trustees Records, 1826-51. 

Inventories of Estates, 1773-79. 

Superior District Court Records, 1783-1805. 


Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1785-97; 1804-28. 
Wills and Inventories of Estates, 1781-85. 
Record of Land Entries, 1778-95. 


Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1816-25; 1826-32. 
Miscellaneous Records, 1737-90; 1790-1818; 1818-1914. 


Marriage Bonds. 
Marriage Bonds. 
Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1734-71; 1772-89; 1771-1866. 
Original Will Books (2), 1797-1816; 1830-48. 
Inventories of Estates, 1758-1810. 

List of Taxables, 1782. 

Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1787-1801; 1792-96; 1813-16; 
1817-21; 1825-29; 1829-35; 1835-39; 1839-45; 1843-44; 
1856-58; 1859-63; 1863-67; 1867-68. 

Inventories of Estates, 1781-92. 

Orphans’ Estates, 1781-1801. 

Marriage Bonds. 


ONSLOW: 


ORANGE: 


PASQUOTANK: 


PERQUIMANS: 


PERSON: 
IPEre: 


ROBESON: 


RocKINGHAM: 


Rowan: 


RUTHERFORD: 


STOKES: 


TYRRELL: 


N. C. Histrortcat Commission 11 


County Court Minutes, 1734-71; 1772-89; 1789-98; 1798- 
1822; 1822-32; 1832-45; 1845-54; 1855-61; 1861-68. 

Wills, 1757-83; 1774-90. 

Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1752-62; 1752-93; 1762-66; 1777- 
88; 1787-95; 1795-1800; 1800-04; 1805-09; 1810-14; 
1815-18; 1818-22; 1822-26; 1826-31; 1831-35; 1836-39; 
1840-45; 1845-47; 1847-51; 1852-56; 1854-57. 

Marriage Bonds. 


Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1691-1822. 
Orphans’ Court Minutes, 1757-85. 

Will Books, 1762-93. 

County Court Minutes, 1741-1868. 

Marriage Bonds. 


Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1658-1820. 

Letters and Court Papers, 1702-1816; 1711-80. 

Precinct Court Papers, 1688-93; 1735-38. E 

Inventories of Estates, Taxables and Titheables, 1715- 
98; 1715-1815. 

County Court Minutes, 1735-74; 1784-89; 1794-1801. 

Marriage Bonds. 

Deeds, 1737-44; 1744-94; 1806-12; 1813-27. 

Wills, 1711-1802; 1766-1808; 1776-1800. 


Marriage Bonds. 


County Papers, 1761-1859. 
County Court Minutes, 1855-61; 1862-67; 1867-68. 


Marriage Bonds. 
Court Documents. 


County Court Minutes, 1786-95; 1796-1803; 1804-07. 
Marriage Bonds. 


Court Papers, 1750-1810. 
Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1794-98; 1799-1802; 1803-06; 
1806-10; 1813-17; 1808-19; 1818-19; 1820-21; 1821-25; 
1825-30; 1831-37; 1838-44; 1862-68. 

Marriage Bonds. 

Wills, 1782-1833. 

Guardians’ Accounts, 1840-50. 

Land Entries, 1791-1803. 


Marriage Bonds. 


County Court Minutes, 1735-61; 1761-82; 1783-98; 1798- 
1811; 1809-16; 1819-49; 1841-65; 1865-68. 

Marriage Bonds. 

Deeds, 1735-54; 1746-84; 1767-99. 

Miscellaneous Court Records, 1756-86. 


12 Nintse Brenniat Report 


WAEE: Marriage Bonds. 

WARREN: County Court Minutes, 1787-92; 1783-89; 1793-1800; 
1787-1806; 1791-1815; 1800-05; 1801-05; 1806-14; 1823- 
25; 1852-54. 


Marriage Bonds. 
WASHINGTON: Deeds, 1800-01. 
WAYNE: County Court Minutes, 1787-88. 
Wills, in 10 small books, 1787-1824; also original wills, 
1781-1805. 
Inventories of Estates. 
Marriage Bonds (5) 1795. 
Marriage Licenses (2 books, indexed) 1851-61. 


WILKES: County Court Minutes, 1797. 
County Court Records, 1778-99. 
Marriage Bonds. 


They consist of County Court Minutes, Deeds, Wills, Inventories, 
Tax Lists, and Marriage Bonds. These records are consulted daily 
by historical workers. 


Several hundred thousand documents were handled in the above 
work. There is not a paper in our collection that has not been classi- 
fied and made accessible to investigators. 


Hanpso0o0x or MANUSCRIPTS 


A typewritten handbook, giving descriptions of manuscripts, similar 
to the Handbook of Manuscripts in the Library of Congress, has been 
systematically added to. The Handbook consists now of 187 pages 
and describes 187 collections. 


CALENDARS 


The following calendars are ready for publication: 
North Carolina Letters in the Van Buren Papers, 1824-1858. 
Hale Papers, 1850-1866. 
D. L. Swain Manuscripts, 1793-1868. 
North Carolina Letters from The Crittenden Papers, 1827-1863. 
Hayes Collection, 1728-1806. 
Spencer Papers, 1859-1902. 
William L. Saunders Manuscripts, 1866-1888. 
Dartmouth Manuscripts, 1720-1783. 


Reparrine or Manuscripts 
17,752 sheets have been repaired in various ways, as follows: 


8,567 repaired with paper. 

1,442 repaired with crepeline. 
561 hinged with cloth. 

12,904 mounted for binding. 


N. C. Htsroricat Commisston 13 


88 pages inserted in books already bound. 
95 clippings mounted for binding, on 80 sheets. 
4 large maps mounted on cloth and hinged. 


Inpex to Revotutionary Army Accounts 
The card index to the Revolutionary Army Accounts mentioned 
in previous reports has been copied and bound into five handy volumes. 
These indexes, together with those to the Colonial and State Records, . 
give complete references to all available sources of information about 
North Carolina’s soldiers in the Revolutionary War. 


REVOLUTIONARY RosTER 


Under direction of the Secretary, Mr. Moses Amis is preparing from 
the above material a complete roster of North Carolina soldiers in 
the Revolutionary War. 


Inpex to HatrHaway’s GENEALOGICAL REGISTER 
Mr. R. D. W. Connor is preparing for the Commission a card index 
to Hathaway’s Genealogical Register. This will give invaluable aid 
to genealogical investigators. 


Brnvine 


Sixty-four volumes were bound as follows: 
Chowan County Papers, 1685-1805, I-XIX. 
Wills, Vol. IV, 1733-1752. 
Court Papers, District of Edenton, 1751-1787. 
General Court Papers, Vols. I-II, 1690-1754. 
Vice Admiralty Papers, Vols. I-IV, 1697-1759. 
Customs House Papers, Port of Roanoke, Vols. I-II, 1682-1775. 
Albemarle County Papers, Secretary’s Office, 1678-1739, Vols. I-II. 
Granville District Papers, Land Office Records, 1744-1763. 
Governors’ Papers, State Series, 1787-1814, Vols. XVI-XLI. 
Lenoir County Papers, Lovitt Hines Collection, 1737-1914, Vols. I-III. 
World War Records, R. B. House Papers, 1916-1920, Vols. I-II. 


PUBLICATIONS 


The following publications have come from the press: 

Bulletin 27. The Highth Biennial Report of the Secretary of the 
North Carolina Historical Commission, December 1, 1918-November 
30, 1920. Paper. 40 pp. 

Bulletin 28. Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Annual 
Sessions of the State Literary and Historical Association of North 
Carolina, 1920 and 1921. Paper. 128 pp. 

North Carolina Manual for 1921. Compiled and edited by R. D. W. 
Connor. Cloth. 486 pp. 


14 — Ninte Brennrat Report 


Papers of Thomas Ruffin. Compiled and edited by J. G. deR. Hamilton. 
Vol. III. Cloth. 464 pp. Vol. IV. Cloth. 403 pp. 


DeGraffenried’s Account of the Founding of New Bern. Edited by 
Vincent H. Todd in co-operation with Julius Goebel. Cloth. 434 pp. 


Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Edited by Adelaide L. 
Fries. Vol. I. Cloth. 511 pp. 


PusricatTion or Wor~tp War Recorps 


In co-operation with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the 
Collector of War Records, R. B. House, wrote and published the North 
Carolina Day Program for 1921, this being a brief history of North 
Carolina in the World War. Paper. 12 pp. 


For the County Commissioners of Caswell County he edited and pub- 
lished Caswell County in the World War. Paper. 350 pp. 


Uss or Recorps 


One hundred and fifteen people came in person to consult the records 
in the Commission’s archives. Three expert genealogists have also been 
constantly employed in making researches for people in all parts of 
the country. While genealogical information has been most frequently 
sought, the following subjects have been worked out from records in 
our possession : 

John Motley Morehead and the Development of North Carolina, 1796-1866. 


By Burton Alva Konkle, with an introduction by Hon. H. G. Connor. Cloth. 
437 pp. Philadelphia, Campbell, 1922. : 


The Negro in North Carolina to 1860. Thesis of R. H. Taylor, graduate 
student at the University of Michigan. 

Union Sentiment in North Carolina During the Civil War. Thesis of Miss 
Mary Shannon Smith, Columbia University. 

Willie P. Mangum. Thesis of Miss Penelope McDuffie, Columbia University. 

Ratification of the Federal Constitution. Thesis of Miss Louise Irby, 
Columbia University. 

The Farmers Alliance. Special research by Dr. J. D. Hicks, Professor of 
History, North Carolina College for Women. 

History of Education in North Carolina. Special research by Prof. M. C. S. 
Noble, University of North Carolina. 


Special research in educational documents by Dr. EH. W. Knight, University 
of North Carolina. 


North Carolina Wills. Research by F. W. Clontz, Yale University. 

William R. Davie, special research by R. D. W. Connor, University of 
North Carolina. 

North Carolina in the World War. R. B. House, in conjunction with the 
Department of Public Instruction. 


N. CO. Hisroricat Commission 15 


ACCESSIONS 


ADDITIONS TO FormMER COLLECTIONS 


From one to a dozen pieces were added to the following collections 
of private papers: Thomas Person, John Williams, Martin Howard, 
William Gaston, Joseph Burton, James C. Dobbin, George E. Badger, 
John Branch, Benjamin Hawkins, D. H. Hill, Z. B. Vance, James 
Phillips, Nathaniel Macon, Griffith Rutherford, Joseph Benton, Abner 
Nash, L. O’B. Branch, Richard Caswell, Nicholas Long, William Polk, 
R. D. Catlin, T. H. Holmes. 

More numerous and important additions are as follows: 

Joun Heriracr Bryan Parers.—To this collection of John Heritage 
Bryan, Colonel J. Bryan Grimes has added 147 pieces, dating from 
1798 to 1870, adding interesting and valuable data to this important his- 
torical and biographical collection. 

Water Cxrarx Paprrs.—To this collection of his personal papers 
Chief Justice Walter Clark has added 1,063 pieces. This brings the 
total of this valuable collection to 5,032 pieces. 

Wa ter Crark Manuscriers.—To this collection of valuable histor- 
ical manuscripts, Chief Justice Clark has added 569 pieces, making a 
total in this collection of 1,768 pieces. 

Wittiam A. Granam Parers.—To this collection of his father’s 
papers, Major W. A. Graham has added 351 pieces, dating from 1776 
to 1875. 

Exxcutive Parrrs.—11,000 papers were added to the papers of North 
Carolina Governors, as follows: Holden, Vance, Brogden, Jarvis, 
Fowle, Aycock, Glenn, Craig, and Bickett. Thirty-one letter-books were 
added to our collections, and six warrant books. These have been noted 
above. ; 

Crviz War Papers.—From Captain E. M. Michaux, Goldsboro, were 
received 2,500 pieces of Civil War material, including 500 telegrams, 
1861-1865. Quartermaster Returns 26th Regiment, 1861-1865 ;* Muster 
Rolls 26th Regiment, 1862-1864. Band and Hospital service. From 
Dr. H. T. King, a roster of Pitt County soldiers, 1860-1865, 60 pp. mss. 

Papers From State Orrices.—The following papers and volumes 
were received from various State offices : 

Secretary of State, 1729-1905, 4,900 pieces. 
Treasurer, Comptroller, and Auditor, 1790-1870, 33 volumes, 7,900 


pieces. 
Customs House Papers, 900 pieces, 1788-1790. 


1 Presented by Mrs. John M. Ellington and Mr. Cadmus Young, Polenta. 


16 Nintse Brenniat Report 


County Rxcorps.—223 cases and volumes were received from the 
following counties: Bute, Buncombe, Brunswick, Carteret, Cumber- 
land, Duplin, Halifax, New Hanover, Northampton, Orange, Robeson, 
Wayne. This swells our county collection to 1,088 cases and volumes 
covered in the list above. 

Mars.—The following maps were received: 

Map of the United States with insert of North Carolina, 1804. 
Plan of Wilmington, 1769. From Dr. Charles M. Andrews. 


London in Miniature, Edward Mogg, 1829. From Mrs. Pattie D. B. 
Arrington. 


Wortp War Recorps, 1914-1919 


InprvipvuaL Recorps—Army—800.—North Carolina War Service 
Records (World War), 1914-1919. Compiled by Daughters of the Amer- 
ican Revolution. Cloth. 2 Vols. 885 pp. Local Board Lists of 
Inducted men from North Carolina, alphabetized by race, names, and 
counties, for binding—a list of about 55,100 names. In conjunction 
with the Adjutant-General we have also a card index to all service 
men from North Carolina by all classes. This list contains over 90,000 
names. 

Inpivipuat Recorps—Navy—4. 

InpivipuaLt Recorps—Air SErvice—4. 

DrsErTERS.—A complete file to date of the deserters from North Caro- 
lina, as published by the War Department and the Congressional 
Record. é 

Sorpiers’ Lerrrrs—120.—George W. Alston, Joseph A. Bumpus, 
Robert W. Winston, Jr., and Collier Cobb, Jr. 

PuHoToGRAPHS—50. 

History or Nortu Carorina Unirs.—Base Hospital 65. 

30TH Drviston.—Field Orders 2nd Army Corps—i volume, also 2 
volumes manuscript. 

Calendar of Records of 30th Division in the files of the Historical 
Section, Army War College, MSS. 60 pp. 

Calendar of Records of 60th Brigade, 30th Division, in the files of 
the Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 14 pp. 

Calendar of Records of 105th Sanitary Train, in the files of the 
Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 1 p. 

Calendar of Records of the 10th Field Squad Battalion, in the files 
of the Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 2 pp. 

Calendar of Records of the 105th Supply Train, in the files of the 
Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 1 p. 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commisston 17 


Calendar of Records of the 105th Engineers, in the files of the His- 
torical Section, Army War College, MSS. 10 pp. 

Calendar of Records of 113th Field Artillery, in the files of the His- 
torical Section, Army War College, MSS. 1 p. 

Calendar of Records of 115th Machine Gun Battalion, in the files 
of the Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 2 pp. 

Calendar of Records of the 105th Train Headquarters, in the files 
of the Historical Section, Army War College, MSS. 1 p. 

Calendar of Records of the 119th Infantry, in the files of the His- 
torical Section, Army War College, MSS. 7 pp. 

Calendar of Records of the 120th Infantry, in the files of the His- 
torical Section, Army War College, MSS. 3 pp. 

113th Field Artillery, about 10,000 original records, 1916-1919. 

113th Machine Gun Battalion. Calendar of Records, Army War 
College, MSS. 2 pp. 

117th Engineer Train. Calendar of Records in Army War College, 
MSS. 15 pp. 

American Lecion.—Complete file of American Legion Weekly to date. 
Complete file of papers Department of North Carolina. 

Rep Cross.—History of following chapters: Englehard, Hyde Coun- 
ty; Greensboro; Hillsboro. 

War Savines.—200 pieces from Miss Kate Herring. 

Y. M. C. A.—Report of Greensboro Y. M. C. A., April 1917-July, 
1920. 

County War History.—Granville, Vol., 214 pp.; Chowan, 300 
pieces; Halifax, 200 pieces; Caswell, Vol., 350 pp.; Brunswick, 200 
pieces; Union, 60 pp. MSS. 

WomeEN 1n THE War.—Women’s Committee, Council of Defence, 15 
pp. MSS. 


MisceELLANEOUS.— 
Pamphlets—2,000. 
War Poetry—100 pieces. 
Mrs. R. O. Burton, Scrap Book—10,000 clippings. 


Nerwsparers—In addition to the E. Burke Haywood collection of 
Civil War newspapers, systematic search for North Carolina newspapers 
prior to 1800 has been prosecuted. Through the courtesy of the 
Library of Congress in making photostats of papers in its possession, 
the Massachusetts Historical Society in making photostat positives 


18 Ninta Brenniat Report 


under an arrangement made in 1920, and the University of North Caro- 
lina Library in lending volumes and odd numbers of papers, the 
Historical Commission now has 652 numbers as follows: 


WasHineton FEDERALIST 
Rind & Prentiss, Washington, D. C. 


Year No. DATE REMARKS 


1801 182 November 25 Pages 1 and 2. 


Tue VirGINIA GAZETTE 
John Dixon & William Hunter 


1775 1272 December 23 Pages 1 and 2. 
1778 1415 May 15 


Tuer Nortu Carorina JOURNAL 
Abraham Hodge, Halifax 


1794 80 January 22 
104 July 9 
120 November 3 
1795 1380 January 12 
132 26 
170 October 19 
1796 181 January ie 


183 8 
184 25 
185 February 1 
186 

187 15 
190 March 7 
191 14 
192 21 
193 28 
194 April 4 and extra. 
195 11 
196 18 
197 25 
198 May 2 
200 16 
201 May 23 
202 30 
203 June 6 
205 20 
206 27 
208 July 11 
209 18 
210 25 
211 August 1 
212 8 
213 15 
214 22 
215 29 
216 September 5 
217 12 


218 19 and mutilated original. 


Year No. 


1796 


1753 


1757 
1759 
1768 
1769 
1774 


1775 


219 
221 
222 
223 
224 
225 
226 
227 
228 
225 
230 


N. CO. Hisroricat Commission 


DatTE 


October 3 


November 7 
14 
21 
283 
December 5 


REMARKS 


12 Pages 2, 3 and 4 missing. 


Tuer Norte Carorina GAZETTE 


James Davis, Newbern 


July 

April 15 
October 18 
June 24 
November 10 
July 15 


September 2 
February 24 


March 24 
April 7 
May 5 
12 
June 16 
30 


July 


7 
4 
. October 6 
2 


December 2 
July 4 


August 1 


September 5 


October 3 


November 7 


December 5 


crepe-lined. 


? Pages 1 and 2 missing. 


Pages 1 and 2 missing. 


Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
Pages 1 and 4 missing. 


Mutilated. 


Pages 3 and 4. 


and Supplement, 1 page. 


The original is 


19 


20 


YEAR 


1778 


1790 
1791 


1793 
1794 
1795 


No. 


A55 
456 


Nintu Brennrat Report 


DATE 


January 2 


February 6 
March 6 
April 3 
May 1 


June 6 
1 


July 3 


August 7 
September 4 


October 2 


November 


REMARKS 


Pages 3 and 4. 
Mutilated. 


(The following are printed by F. X. Martin) 


221 
223 
282 
286 
288 
298 
304 
405 
406 
417 
439 
474 
475 
487 
488 


April ik 
15 
June 4 
July 2 
16 


September 24 
November 5 
October 12 

19 


Jani ary 4 


June 7 
February 14 

21 
May 23 


30 


Year No. 
1795 489 


1796 


1797 


1787 


N. C. Historica Commission 


DaTE 
June 6 
0 
July 4 
il 
October 24 
November 
December 2' 
January 


2 
February 13 
27 

March 


April 2 
9 
30 
May 14 
21 
28 
June 5 
12 
18 
25 
July 2 
9 
16 
August f 
September 3 
10 
17 
October 1 
8 
22 
29 
November 5 
12 
19 
26 
December 3 
10 
il7/ 
31 
January 7 
21 
28 
February 4 
25 
March 11 
18 
25 
April 8 
15 
August 5 


21 


REMARKS 


Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 


Pages 1 and 2 mutilated. 
Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 


Pages 2 and 3 missing. 


Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 


Slightly blotted. 


Martin’s Norra Carotina GazeTTr 
F. X. Martin, Newbern 


July 11 
August 15 
December 19 


22 


YEAR 


1787 
1788 


1798 


1799 


1800 


Tue Norts Carotina Minerva AND FAYETTEVILLE ADVERTISER 


1796 


123 


Nintxe Brenniat Report 


Tue State Gazette or NortH Carona 


Hodge & Blanchard, Newbern 


DATE REMARKS 


October 4 

November 15 Pages 1 and 4. 

February 7 Mutilated—printed by Hodge & Wills. 
March 27 + Slightly mutilated, crepelined. 


Tur Newsern Gazette 


John C. Osborn & Co., Newbern 


November 24 
December 1 
8 
15 
22 
29 Slightly mutilated, pages 3 and 4 are miss- 
ing. 
January 12 
26 
February Z 
16 
23 
March 22 
9 
16 
July 20 
May 23 Printed by John S. Pasteur. Pages 1 and 


August 15 2 mutilated. 


Hodge & Boylan, Fayetteville 


March 31 
April 21 
May 12 
June 9 
16 
23 
30 
July 9 
23 


30 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
August 13 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
0 Pages 1 and 2 mutilated. 


September 3 
October 1 


November 5 
1 


2 
19 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 


N. GC. Hisroricat Commission. 


Yrar No. DatTE REMARKS 
1796 37 December 3 
4 St 
1797 42 January 7 
2 


44 1 
45 28 
46 February 4 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
47 11 
48 18 
AQ 25 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
50 March 4 
51 1 
52 18 
53 25 
54 April 1 
55 8 
56 15 
60 May 13 
63 June 3 
64 10 
85 November 4 
87 18 
1798 99 February 10 
100 1 
102 March 3 
105 24 
112 May 12 
113 19 
117 June 16 
118 23 
119 30 
120 July a 
125 August ial 
137 November 3 
139 1 


7 
141 December 1 
143 15 
1799 149 January 26 
151 February 9 
156 March 16 

157 23 


Tue Norru Carorina SENTINEL AND FAYETTEVILLE GAZETTE 
Thomas Connoly & Co., Fayetteville 


1795 9 July 25 
11 August & 
12 1 


5 ; 
14 29 Published by J. V. Lewis and T. Connoly. 
Tur Norru Carorina Cxronicie; ok Fayerrevitte GazettE 
Sibley & Howard, Fayetteville 
1790 23 February 1 


3(85)May 10 
37 24 
38 31 
39 June 7 


Nintso Brenniat Report. 


FAYETTEVILLE GAZETTE 
Sibley & Howard, Fayetteville 


Yrar No. DaTE REMARKS 

1789 1 August 24 Pages 3 and 4 mvtilated, crepelined. 
4 September 14. 
5 21 
8 October 12 


FAYETTEVILLE GAZETTE 
Alexander Martin, for John Sibley 
1792 1 August a 


& September 25 
9 October 2 


10 9 
11 16 
12 23 
13 30 


14 November 6 
27 


19 December 11 
1793 12 Janvary 2 


33 2 

41 May 21 

42 a 

43 June 

65 & November 19 ee by Laucelot A. Mullin for John 
ibley. 


Hatt’s WILMINGTON GAZETTE 
1797 6 February 9 
7 16 
9 March 2 


12 23 and extra of 2 pages. 
13 30 
14 April 6 
16 20 
23 June 8 


35 August 24 
37 September a 


39 

40 October 5 
42 12 
43 26 


44 November 3 
1798 58 February §8 
22 


60 

62 March g 
65 29 
67 April 12 
74 May 31 
77 +June 21 


93 October 11 
97 November a 
2 


Year No. 


1799 


1766 
No date 


1768 
1773 


1774 


1775 


113 
1 


N. C. Hisroritcat Commission 


25 


Tue Witmineton GAZETTE 


Allmand Hall, Wilmington 


DATE 
March u 
April 4 

19 
June 13 
August 8 


September 5 
October 3 
10 


17 
31 
December 12 


REMARKS 


Tur Nortu Carorina GAZETTE 
Andrew Stuart, Wilmington 


February 12 
26 


November 27 


Pages 2 and 3 missing. 


Continuation of the North Carolina Gazette. 


Tur Carr Frar Mercury 
A. Boyd, Wilmington 


November 24 
January 13 
September 3 
December 29 


May 11 
ie 

July 28 

August 7 

11 

25 


September 1 


Pages 3 and 4 missing. 


Pages 8 and 4 mutilated. 
One sheet of what appears to be above 
paper. 


Tue Witmineton SENTINEL, AND GENERAL ADVERTISER 


Bowen & Howard, Wilmington 


1788 


16 


June 18 


Tue Wiremineton Curonicte anp NortH CaroLtina WEEKLY 


1795 


1796 


ADVERTISER 


James Carey, Wilmington 


July 3 
10 
17 
31 
September 24 
October 22 
February 4 
April 14 


August 4 


Printed by John Bellew. 


26 


Year No. 


1788 


1789 


140 
141 
142 
143 
144 
145 
146 
147 
148 
149 
150 
151 
152 
153 


Nintse Brenntat Report 


Tue State Gazetrrre or Nortu Carotina 


Hodge & Wills, Edenton 


DatTr 


September 8 
15 


October 
November 
November 


December 


January 


February 


March 


April 


May 


June 


July 


August 


Sept. 


October 


REMARKS 


Year No. 
1789 200 


1790 209 
2 


1791 =. 261 
2 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission 


DaTE REMARKS 


November 5 
12 


December 4 


January 7 
16 

23 Mutilated. 

February 6 

March 6 


April 3 Pages 1 and 4. 


May 1 


June 4 


July 2 


Avgust 6 
September 
October 

November 5 


December 17 
3 


January fi 


27 


28 


1792 
1793 


1794 


1795 


1796 


Nintsy Brenniat Report 


DATE 


February 


March 
April 
June 


July 
August 
September 


November 
March 
May 


June 
August 
September 
October 
December 
January 


February 
May 
February 
April 
May 
June 


July 


Sept. 
December 


January 


February 
March 


April 


May 
June 


4 
it 


REMARKS 


Pages 3 and 4. 


Printed by Henry Wills. 


Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 


Extra, with pages 1 and 4 mutilated; 3 and: 
4 missing. 


Year No. 


1796 


1797 


1797 
1798 


we 


546 
547 
548 
549 


N. C. Hisroricat Commission 


DATE REMARKS 


July 7 
August 5 


September 1 


October 6 


November 3 
December 1 


January 
A and supplement, only 2 pages. 


February 9 


March 2, 


April 13 and extra, 1 page. 
May 18 

June & 

22 and supplement of 2 pages. 
July 13 

August 10 


September 7 


2 
October 5 Pages 2 and 3 missing. 


Strate Gazertn or NortH Carolina 
James Wills, Edenton 


November 2 
December 21 
January 18 


February 1 
March 1 
May 10 
24 
31 


29 


Ninth Birennrat Report 


Year No. DaTE REMARKS 
1798 650 July 4 Pages 3 and 4 mutilated. 
652 18 
655 August § 
658 29 


668 October 31 

674 December 26 

1799 675 January 2 
23 


672 
673 30 
674 February 6 
676 


Tue Epenton INTELLIGENCER 
Maurice Murphy, Edenton 


1788 25 April 9 
Tue Heratp or FREEDOM 
James Wills, Edenton 


1799 680 March 27 
684 May 1 


Tue Post-Ancet, or UniversaL ENTERTAINMENT 
Printed for Robert Archibald by Joseph Beasley, Edenton 


1800 2 September 10 4 pages. 
9 November 12 


Tue Nortn Carorina Minerva, AND RateigH ADVERTISER 
Hodge & Boylan, Raleigh 
1799 163 May 28 
169 July 9 
176 August 27 


178 September 10 
182 October ae 


189 November 26 
1800 March 11 Extra. 
226 August 12 
Tuer Nortn Caroriva Minerva 
Hodge & Boylan, Raleigh 
1800 245 December 23 


Tue Nortu Carorina GazETTE 
Robert Ferguson, for Thomas Davis, Hillsborough 


1786 February 16 Number torn off. 


Tur Nortu Carorina Mercury anp SaLispury ADVERTISER 
Francis Coupee 


1799 62 June 27 


N. C. Histortcat Commission 31 


NEW COLLECTIONS 


Freperick Naso Paprers.—From Assistant Attorney-General Frank 
Nash the Commission received the papers of Chief Justice Frederick 
Nash, 1781-1858, 25 pieces. 


TazEwELL Harcrove Paprers.—Mr. W. Stamps Howard of Tarboro 
gave to the Commission the Tazewell C. Hargrove collection of auto- 
graphs of members of the North Carolina Secession Convention, 1861. 


T. D. Hoce Parers.—From Miss Sallie Dortch of Raleigh the Com- 
mission received 2,000 pieces of miscellaneous Civil War material, the 
property of her grandfather, Major T. D. Hogg. 

Davin CiarK Parrrs.—Chief Justice Walter Clark gave to the His- 
torical Commission 19 letters of his father, General David Clark, 
relating to the defenses of the Roanoke River, 1860. 

E. Burxe Haywoop Coiiection or Crvm War Newspapers.—From 
Mr. Ernest Haywood of Raleigh the Historical Commission received 
the following collection of newspapers, deposited as a memorial to his 
father and mother, Dr. E. Burke Haywood and Mrs. Lucy A. Haywood. 
The collection includes: 

Dairy Sentivet of Raleigh, 10 vols., 1865-1870. 

RatetcH StTanparp, 9 vols., 1859-1866. 

RatzicH Recister, 5 vols., 1850-1868. 

Rateien Strate Journat, 1 vol., 1860-1865. 

Rateten Datty Conservative, 1 vol., 1864-1865. 

Rateien Proeress, 1 vol., 1862-1865. 

RaxreieH Datty ConFrEepEratTE, 1 vol., 1864-1865. 

Ricumonp Enquirer, 2 vols., 1863-1864. 

RicuMonpD SENTINEL, 1 vol., 1863-1864. 

Ricumonp Examiner, 3 vols., 1861-1865. 

Nortx Carotina Prespyterian (Fayetteville), 1 vol., 1858-1863. 

Nationat INTELLIGENCER (Washington, D. C.), 9 vols., 1840-1859. 


Diary oF CaTHariInE Ann Epmonpston.—From Mrs. Katherine Deve- 
reux Mackay the Historical Commission received the diary of Mrs. 
Catharine Ann Edmondston, daughter of Thomas Pollock Devereux and 
Catharine Ann Devereux of Raleigh. The diary is in four volumes. 
It deals with daily happenings on the plantation, Hascosea, near Scot- 
land Neck, North Carolina, and with the general progress of the Civil 
War. It covers the dates 1860-1866. 


Drury Lacy Lerters.—From Col. J. Bryan Grimes the Historical 
Commission received a collection of 40 letters written by Rev. Charles 
Phillips of Chapel Hill to Rev. Drury Lacy of Raleigh. The letters 


82 Ninte Brenntat Report 


cover the year 1883, and form a chapter in a correspondence that con- 
tinued from 1849 till about 1884 between these two friends. 

Dickson Letrers.—From Mr. R. K. Bryan, Scotts Hill, N. C., the 
Commission received 10 letters written by William Dickson, Duplin 
County, N. C., to his cousin, Robert Dickson, in Ireland. The letters 
cover the years 1784-1790, and give a true picture of the closing 
years of the Revolution. 

Woop Joun Hamiin Parers.—This collection of 278 letters was 
secured by purchase. They cover the years 1762-1835, and deal with 
business and plantation affairs on the estate of Wood John Hamlin 
in Halifax County. ; 

Reeister or Licentiatres.—Board of Medical Examiners of North 
Carolina, 1 vol., 1859-1920. Deposited by Dr. Kemp P. Battle. 

AvutocraPH oF JoHN Hancocx.—From Mr. Owen Kenan, Wil- 
mington. 

Hoce Drrps.—13 pieces from Mrs. ©. A. Shore, Raleigh. 


NORTH CAROLINA RECORDS IN LONDON 


In the summer of 1922 Mr. R. D. W. Connor searched the records of 
North Carolina in the British Public Record Office and the British 
Museum. The notable results of Mr. Connor’s search may be seen in 
the following brief report: 

Carpet Hitt, N. C., November 17, 1922. 
Dr. D. H. Hu, Secretary, 
The North Carolina Historical Commission, 
Raleigh, N. C. 


Dear Dr. Hitt :—In accordance with the request of the North Caro- 
lina Historical Commission that I go to London to examine the collections 
in the British Public Record Office and the British Museum to ascertain 
whether they contain any documents of importance to the colonial his- 
tory of North Carolina of which the State does not now have copies, 
I sailed from New York June 17th and spent the eight weeks from 
June 26th to August 19th in London at work in the two above mentioned 
institutions. 

The chief depository of material bearing on Colonial America is the 
British Public Record Office, where my work was mostly done. The 
greater portion of the North Carolina material deposited there has 
been printed in the Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, but 
much valuable material remains to be copied. How much there is of 
such material I cannot say, because the collections are so large that 


N. C. Hisrorrcat Commission. 33 


in the time at my disposal I could not possibly make a complete exam- 
ination of them. The series of Colonial Office Papers alone embraces 
1,742 volumes and bundles of manuscripts. It was perfectly obvious, 
therefore, that in eight weeks I could examine but a few, comparatively, 
of the hundreds of volumes that might contain North Carolina material. 
I decided accordingly to examine in each collection a sufficient number 
of volumes to enable me to determine three things, namely: 

1. Whether they contain unpublished material of importance to our 
history ; 

2. The character and scope of that material; 

3. The best method of obtaining copies of it. 

Altogether I made such an examination of 371 volumes and bundles 
in the following collections, which are described in Andrew’s “Guide,” 
in the volume and on the pages indicated in parentheses following each 
title: 

State Papers, Foreign, and Foreign Office Papers (I, 18-41). 
State Papers, Domestic, and Heme Office Papers (I, 42-74). 
Colonial Office Papers (I, 78-267). 

Admiralty Papers (II, 1-65). 

Audit Office, Declared Papers (II, 66-78). 

Audit Office, Declared Accounts (II, 79-105). 

Lord Chamberlain Papers (II, 107-108). 


Treasury Papers (II, 136-269). 
War Office Papers (II, 270-303). 


In each of the volumes, or bundles, which I examined, I listed the 
documents which bear directly on North Carolina, and I attach hereto 
a check-list of those documents. Many of the documents on this list 
are printed in the Colonial Records, but I have not had time yet to 
check them up completely. Those which I have checked have been 
marked out. I have thus checked through the first 44 pages of the 
attached list; some of the documents which I have not marked out may 
be in the Colonial Records, but if so I have not been able to locate 
them. An examination of this list will show that there is still a vast 
amount of material bearing on the colonial history of North Carolina 
which is not in print, but it is impossible now to say what the extent 
of this material is. For instance, the first 57 pages of the attached list 
contain the North Carolina material found in 109 volumes and bundles 
of Colonial Office Papers; but there are 1,633 volumes and bundles 
in the series which I did not examine. 


The attached list reveals four classes of documents which, it seems 
to me, are important to our history, namely: 


34. Ninta Brennrat Report 


1. Documents dealing directly with North Carolina and North Carolinians. 


2. Documents bearing upon territory formerly but not now embraced 
within the limits of North Carolina. 


3. Documents dealing with matters of common interest to all the American 
colonies, or to two or more including North Carolina, but which do not 
refer to specific colonies. 


4. Documents concerning individuals connected with the history of North 
Carolina, but concerning them either before such connection began or 
after it ceased. 


The final point to be considered is the best procedure to be followed 
for procuring copies of this material. It will be a simple matter to 
employ the services of expert copyists in London at reasonable rates 
of compensation, but the chief problem will be to select the documents 
to be copied. These are scattered through hundreds of volumes and 
bundles of manuscripts, each of which contains papers bearing on 
many different subjects. There will be no difficulty in regard to docu- 
ments which bear on their face the colony to which they refer, but 
hundreds of them must be selected from their subject matter. This, 
of course, will require some knowledge of Colonial American history, 
if not of North Carolina history, on the part of the person making 
the selections. It seems to me, therefore, that the Commission must 
decide upon one of two courses: 


First, to send to London a member of the staff of the Commission 
with instructions to make an examination of every volume and every 
bundle (except those I have already examined) and list every document 
bearing on our history sufficiently directly to make it advisable for us 
to have a copy of it. If this is done, such person ought to be instructed 
within the field. Such a procedure would, of course, involve a rather 
long residence in England—at least a year; perhaps longer—and con- 
siderable expense. The alternative, it seems to me, is 


Secondly, to draw from the data which I have already collected gen- 
eral instructions describing the kinds of material wanted, and trust to 
some carefully selected agent resident in England to make the selections 
under such guidance. A large percentage of the material would be 
obvious; the doubtful material might be listed by descriptive titles and 
submitted to the Commission for instructions, though this would, of 
course, involve extra handling of the documents and extra expense. 
Under this plan many documents of which we ought to have copies 
would doubtless be overlooked, but the work could be done probably at 
less expense than would be involved in the first plan suggested above. 


Finally, whatever is done ought to be done as soon as possible. Many 
of these documents—among them some of the most important—are in 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission 35 


very bad condition and are rapidly disintegrating under the constant 
handling to which they are being subjected. This is especially true of 
the American Loyalists Papers, which are of the utmost value for the 
social, economic, political and military history of North Carolina during 
the American Revolution. For a description of these papers see the 
attached check-list under the head “Audit Office Papers.” Many of these 
documents are so rotten that they cannot be handled even with the 
utmost care without damage. 

In conclusion, I must not omit to say that whatever the Commission 
decides to do about these documents, it may expect to receive the fullest 
and heartiest co-operation of the officials of the Public Record Office. 

Very truly yours, 
R. D. W. Connor. 


HISTORICAL MARKERS 
A committee of citizens in New Hanover County formed an associa- 
tion to mark the southwest salient of Fort Fisher. A bronze marker 
was placed on the site of this salient to preserve the memory of its 
location and importance in this historic fort. 


STORY OF THE COUNTIES 
Col. Fred A. Olds wrote and published, through the courtesy of the 
Orphans Friend, Oxford, N. ©., “A Story of the Counties of North 
Carolina, with Other Data.” Paper, 64 pp. The Historical Commission 
distributed 2,500 of these invaluable pamphlets. 


HALL OF HISTORY 
I submit herewith the report of the Collector for the Hall of History, 
and call your special attention to the fine collection of World War relics 
known as the Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt Collection. The Museum 
has been kept open every day of the past biennium, and 315 classes 
of school children received lectures there on North Carolina history. 
Thousands of visitors have viewed the collections. 


Report oF THE CoLLEcToR For THE Hatt or History 
Rateicu, N. C., December 1, 1922. 
Dr. D. H. Hitt, Secretary: 
I beg leave to submit herewith my report as Collector for the Hall of 
History for the period December 1, 1920-November 30, 1922: 
The search for relics and documents during the past two years has 
yielded rich returns, in great variety, covering all periods of North 


36 Ninte Brenniat Report 


Carolina’s history, and it has been made in practically all the counties, 
the only exception being those created since 1865, which present no 
field for such activities. 


Special efforts, extremely successful, were made to complete the 
notable collection of county records, including marriage bonds. Records 
from Bute (extinct since 1779), Duplin, Halifax, Buncombe, North- 
ampton, Carteret, Robeson, Cumberland, Wayne, New Hanover, 
Brunswick, and Orange, were secured, and marriage bonds from Bute, 
Warren, Rowan, Brunswick, Pasquotank, New Hanover, «znd Robeson. 
In some cases the existence of this material was not known by the 
county officials. Records of births, marriages, and deaths in Pasquo- 
tank (formed in 1672) were brought in from 1685. 


Colonial relics in great variety form a notable addition to the col- 
lection in the Hall of History. Revolutionary relics from the battle- 
fields of Moore’s Creek, Ramseur’s Mill, King’s Mountain, Guilford 
Court House, and from other sources, including John Penn’s Diary, 
have been added. 


Indian relics from Lake Mattamuskeet and other points have been 
brought in and installed; also many which illustrate the Scotch settle- 
ment and life. 


Most careful searches were made in the State Capitol and in other 
buildings for historical material, and the “finds” were surprisingly 
numerous and varied. The records of the Governors in the executive 
office were also brought in, arranged and installed in the archives 
department. 


Oil portraits of William Gaston, the writer of the State song, “The 
Old North State,” and of Weldon N. Edwards, who presided over the 
Secession Convention at Raleigh, May, 1861, were received by pre 
sentation as gifts. 


The muster rolls of the 26th North Carolina Infantry, C. S.A. 
(Vance, Burgwyn and Lane, its colonels in succession), were presented 
and tell the stirring history of the regiment which lost more men in 
the war than any other of the more than 4,000 regiments in the Federal 
and Confederate armies. 


Many relics of the War Between the States were gathered, among 
them the brigade flag of Brigadier General Lawrence O’Brian Branch, 
who was killed in Virginia. 


Numerous relics of the World War, illustrating North Carolina’s 
part in it, were secured, notably an illustrative collection from the 
battlefields where the 105th Engineers were engaged, these being a 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission a7 


gift from its colonel, Joseph Hyde Pratt, as a memorial to the 
organization, which was in the 30th—or Old Hickory—Division of 
the American Expeditionary Forces. 

Autographed photographs of North Carolina officers of high rank 
are also among the new additions. The North Carolina branch of the 
Red Cross and the great hospital at Oteen, near Asheville, presented 
tapestries which were gifts by King George of Great Britain. Photo- 
graphs illustrating the visit of Marshal Foch of France to North 
Carolina were another addition. 

The music and words of the original “Dixie,” with a photograph 
and the autograph of Daniel D. Emmett, the author of the famous 
song, are lent for a year by the owner, Mr. Curtis, of Rochester, N. Y., 
and from here go to Cornell University. 

During the two years all the one hundred counties have been visited, 
and in most of them history talks were made in colleges and schools of 
all degrees, in cities and towns and the rural sections. These included 
the State Summer School at the State College, and the Appalachian 
Training School at Boone, At the latter the writer’s two weeks holiday 
was spent in giving lecture courses. 

Respectfully submitted, 
Frep A. Oxps. 


LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE LIBRARY 


Below will be found the report of the Legislative Reference Librarian. 
I call your attention to the various services performed by this depart- 
ment, and to the particular service of the bill-drafting service rendered 
the General Assembly. Six hundred fifty bills were drafted here during 
the regular session of the General Assembly of the 1921 and the special 
session. 

The report follows: 

Raeteu, N. C., November 20, 1922. 
Dr. D. H. Hitt, Secretary, 
North Carolina Historical Commission, 
Raleigh, N.C. 

Dear Si1r:—I beg to submit herewith a report of the work of the 
Legislative Reference Library from December 1, 1920, to November 
20, 1922: 

The past twenty-four months have been unusually active ones in the 
Legislative Reference Library. During this period the following publi- 


38 Nintxe Brenniat Report 


cations have been prepared and distributed among State and county offi- 
cials, libraries and civic and professional organizations throughout 
the State: 

1. Two editions of the Directory of State and County Officials. Hundreds 


of requests were received for this useful booklet, both from within and 
without the State. 


2. A booklet containing the official vote by counties for President, State 
officers, Congressmen and constitutional amendments at the election held in 
November, 1920. A similar booklet covering the 1922 election will be issued 
shortly. 


3. Bulletin No. 3, containing amendments to the Consolidated Statutes 
enacted at the Extra Session of 1920 and the regular session of 1921, arranged 
according to the section numbers of the Consolidated Statutes. This bulletin 
of 69 pages has proved invaluable to the lawyers and court Officials through- 
out the State. ‘ 


4. Bulletin No. 4 (24 pages), containing amendments to the Consolidated 
Statutes enacted at the Extra Session of the General Assembly held in 
December, 1921. This bulletin, together with Bulletin No. 3, contains all 
amendments to the Consolidated Statutes enacted since its adoption in 1919. 


5. A booklet of 32 pages containing synopsis of Game Laws of various 
counties brought up to date with a supplement of game legislation enacted 
at the Special Session of 1921. 


6. A court calendar was compiled showing the dates of the Superior Court 
held in the various counties of the State. This is especially useful to court 
officials, lawyers, and the public generally. 


A concise handbook of information as,to the activities of the various 
State departments is being compiled. This publication is designed to 
give a brief description of all State agencies and will serve as a guide 
to all persons seeking information and assistance. It will contain a 
sketch of the work, together with citation of laws creating each depart- 
ment, showing its chartered function. 


Prior to the election of 1922, the press was furnished a compilation 
showing the compensation of members of the various State Legislatures, 
so that the voters might be informed when passing on the constitutional 
amendment increasing the compensation of members of the General 
Assembly. 

During the regular session of the General Assembly of 1921 five hun- 
dred bills were prepared and drafted for members, and during the Extra 
Session of December, 1921, one hundred and fifty bills were likewise 
prepared in this office, three stenographers from the offices of the En- 
grossing Clerks of the House and Senate having been kept busy type- 
writing the bills drafted. Members of the General Assembly, partic- 
ularly the lay members, have appreciated this feature of the work in 
the Legislative Reference Library more than ever. 


N. OC. Hisroricat Commission 39 


In addition to the above outline of some of the principal activities 
during the past two years, hundreds of inquiries touching on legislation 
in this and other States have been investigated and answered, and in 
no case has this office failed to give prompt and careful attention to 
all matters referred to it. 


Since January, 1922, Mrs. W. J. Peele has been regularly employed 
as stenographer and assistant to the Legislative Reference Librarian, 
and her services have been entirely satisfactory. 

Respectfully yours, 
Hewry M. Lonpon, 
Legislatwe Reference Inbrarian. 


SUMMARY 


The various and constant services rendered the public by the His- 
torical Commission’s staff cannot be adequately summarized. But the 
following analysis of the foregoing report will show the main features 
of the work for the past two years: 


1. 95,931 documents were properly arranged for use in our collections. 
Over 100,000 other documents were grouped in proper classifications. 500 
cases of new material were handled. 

2. 1,078 cases and volumes of county records from fifty counties were 
arranged and catalogued. 4 

8. 17,752 pieces were scientifically repaired and mounted. 

4. The Revolutionary Army Accounts were made available by an index 
of five volumes. 

5. 64 volumes were bound. 

6. 6 publications were issued, a total of 6,000 volumes, 

7. 33 collections were added to. 

8. 12 new collections were secured. 

9. New material in London was found and catalogued. 

10. 115 researchers made use of the records; of these, 11 were preparing 
monographs on North Carolina. 

11. 315 classes, totalling 7,300 school children, received lectures on North 
Carolina in the Hall of History. 

12. 1,100 objects were added to the Hall of History. 

13. The Collector for the Hall of History made 392 talks in public schools, 
and issued “The Story of the Counties” to 2,500 people and institutions. 

14. Two publications on the World War were prepared. 

15. 5 publications were issued by the Legislative Reference Library, and 
650 bills were drafted. 


Respectfully submitted, 


D. Ay Ace: 


Secretary. 
RALEIGH, NortTH CAROLINA, December 1, 1922. 


PROCEEDINGS 


OF THE 


Twenty-second Annual Session 


OF THE 


State Literary and Historical Association 
of North Carolina 


RALEIGH 
DECEMBER 7-8, 1922 


Compiled by 
R. B. HOUSE, Secretary 


RALEIGH 
BYNUM PRINTING COMPANY 
State PRINTERS 
1923 


The North Carolina Historical Co: 7 


T. M. Prrrman, Chairman, Henderson 


M. C. S. Nose, Chapel Hill HeErRI0T CLARKSC 
Frank Woop, Edenton W. N. EveEReETT, 


‘ 


D. H. Hu1, Secretary, Raleigh 
R. B. Hovussz, Archivist, Raleigh 


Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association 


of North Carolina 
1921-1922 
RM SMIESED Eee ae Seog cv Sdavac lobe ccasatceceeenceuns anuneueee Wix~iraM K. Boyp, Durham. 
TP ETASTE A’ TCS 2a (2139 (0 (2) 0 Fe le S. A. ASHE, Raleigh. 
MEGGNE ViCe-President.............0isccccosscesssseeccecnces Mrs. D. H. Bratr, Greensboro. 
SMRMEG VICE President. ..iccc....c:secsecesseseecunanececceses JOHN JORDAN DoucLass, Wadesboro. 
“hE Bis ELEEES Sg SS le a R. B. Houss, Raleigh. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


(With above officers) 
W.C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hm, Raleigh. 
J. G. DER. HAMILTON, Chapel Hill CLARENCE Por, Raleigh. 
C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 


1922-1923 
RPE ROESEL creo ov ass Sanevviccenccevaseccatbecedededeve Miss ADELAIDE Fries, Winston-Salem. 
BPESE VV 1CC-PTeSideNt............isc.ccseesederessene BisHop JOSEPH BLoUNT CHESHIRE, Raleigh. 
Second Vice-President................:::000 BENJAMIN SLeEDD, Wake Forest. 
PPHVERG )Vice-President...........s..cc:s5-2-ccce0n<e: Mrs. J. R. CHAMBERLAIN, Raleigh. 
“SURED ISS pe R. B. Houss, Raleigh. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


(With above officers) 


R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 
W. K. Boyp, Chapel Hill. GEN. J. S. Carr, Durham. 
Miss Carrie L. BroucHuTon, Raleigh. JOHN J. Biai, Raleigh. 


PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL 
ASSOCIATION 


“The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera- 
ture and history ; 

“The encouragement of public and school libraries ; 

“The establishment of an historical museum ; 

“The inculeation of a literary spirit among our people ; 

“Phe correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; 
and i 

“The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising genera- 
tions.” 


ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES 


All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the 
Association. The dues are one dollar a year, to be paid to the secretary. 


RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 
(Organized October, 1900) 


Fiscal Paid-up 
Years Presidents Secretaries Membership 
1900-1901 WALTER CLARK........ccccceceertiees ALEX. J. WBULD).cce seers eeee 150 
1901-1902 HENRY G. CONNOR......::::::cccrrees Apmx,. Ji WED]. sree 139 
1902-1903 W. L. POTBAT........cccccccer eee ere eeeene! GEorGE S. FRAPS........:00000008 73 
1903-1904 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.........::000 CLARENCE: PO:...-...-csacssees 127 
1904-1905 Rosert W. WINSTON.........::0:c0+ CLARENCE POE..;:..ccccrssteeenes 109 
1905-1906 CHARLES B. AYCOCK.......:::cceee CLARENCE POB.ecrssesesssnee 185 
1906-1907 W. D. PRUDEN.........:::::cccrctereteeees CLARENCE POE,.......:cccseeseseeses 301 
1907-1908 RoBErRT BINGHAM.........::::cetee! CLARENCE POEs. 7ec serene 273 
1908-1909 JUNIUS DAVIS........c::ccceeeeseeeeeeseeetees CLARENCE POW... -c:esneee 311 
1909-1910 PrLatT D. WALKER.........:. cert CLARENCE POE...........2::0:000++ 440 
1910-1911 EDWARD K. GRAHAM.........-:eeee! CLARENCE POS, ..c:1seeesaenes 425 
1911912) RMD We CONNORS coe nantes CLARENCE POE... 479 
1912-1913 W. BP. BEW.......sccceccccsccceecceerecennetsess R: D. W. CONNOR......00--.0000 476 
1913-1914 ARCHIBALD HENDERSON.....-....0.++ R. D. W. CONNOR..........c:0005 435 
1914-1915 CLARENCE POE..........::ccceeeeeeeeee ee ereee R. D. W. CONNOR...0crecc cess 412 
1915-1916 Howarp EB. RONDTHALER.............. R. D. W. CONNOR........-.:0000 501 
1916-1917 H. A. LONDON..........2:..cceeccceeeeeeeeeee R. D. W. CONNOR.........-.-205 521 
1917-1918 JAMES SPRUNT.......0...:cceeceeereereeees R. D. W. CONNOR.........-::00 453 
1918-1919 JAMES SPRUNT........ccccccceeeeeeereeees R. D. W. CONNOR........--:000 377 
1919-1920 J. G. DER. HAMILTON............:000 R. D. W. CONNOR........:.105 . 493 
TIO es COT OS 0S OO Oey eect peerec cocci ooo RB. HOUSE: i::.ce eae eee 430 
1921-1922 W. K. BOYD...........c.cccsccceesecesreoneeees Re OB: HOUSE): 2.000 sateen 430 
(1922-1923 ADELAIDE HRIES....--.- eee R. Bi HOUSE:........0-.csccnceseress 450 


THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 
Established 1905; discontinued 1922 
THE CoNDITIONS oF AWARD OFFICIALLY SET ForTH BY Mrs. PATTERSON 


To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical 
Association of North Carolina: 


As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among 
the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State 
an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a loving 
cup, upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with your ap- 
proyval and will be found to be just and practicable: 

1. The cup will be known as the “William Houston Patterson Memorial 
Cup.” 

2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten 
successive years, beginning with October, 1905. 

8. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve 
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the year 
of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its 
length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. The 
work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manuscript 
nor any unpublished writings will be considered. 

4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup, 
with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 1st 
of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the 
Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual 
Meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one 
winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it three 
times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so often, 
the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names of 
only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award shall 
be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup. 

5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and 
Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of 
the occupants of the chairs of English Literature at the University of North 
Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State Col- 
lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the chairs of History 
at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College. 

6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their 
successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the board, and 
these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter time, 
as the board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to act 
must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to serve, 
so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each year. 

7. The publication of a member of the board will be considered and passed 
upon in the same manner as that of any other writer. 

Mrs. J. Linpsay PATTERson. 


SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION 


According to a resolution adopted at the 1908 session of the Literary and 
Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have his 
work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communicate 
with any member of the committee, either personally or through a representa- 
tive. Books or other publications to be considered, together with any com- 
munication regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the Association 
and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for consideration. 


AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 


1905—JoHN CHARLES McNEILL, for poems later reprinted in book form as 
“Songs, Merry and Sad.” 

1906—Epwin Mims, for “Life of Sidney Lanier.’ 

1907—Kremp PrumMMer Barrie, for “History of the University of North Caro- 
lina.” 

1908—SamvEL A’Court AsHE, for “History of North Carolina.” 

1909—CLARENCE Por, for “A Southerner in Europe.” 

1910-—R. D. W. Connor, for “Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Carolina 
History.” 

1911—ArcHuipaLD Henprerson, for “George Bernard Shaw: His Life and 
Works.” 

4912—CLARENCE Por, for “Where Half the World is Waking Up.” 

Pao nae KepnHart, for “Our Southern Highlanders.” 

1914_J. G. pER. Hamiton, for “Reconstruction in North Carolina.” 

1915—Wiui1AM Louis Poreat, for “The New Peace.” 

1916—No award. 

41917—Mrs. OxivE TirrorD Darean, for “The Cycle’s Rim.” 

1918—No award. 

1919—No award. 

1920—Miss WInIFRED KirKLAND, for “The New Death.” 

1921—No award. 

1922—JosEepHus Danrets, for “Our Navy at War.” 


; 


FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 
RateicH, N. C., March 16, 1923. 


Mrs. J. Linpsay Patterson, Winston-Salem, N. C. 


Dear Mrs. Patrerson :—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the 
Literary and Historical Association yesterday, it was decided to discontinue 
the award of the Patterson Memorial Cup and to deposit the cup as a per- 
manent memorial in the Hall of History. This decision was reached only 
after it had been ascertained that such disposition was agreeable to you. 

As you will remember, the original contest was to continue for ten years, 
with the idea that if any one author should win the cup three times it would 
become his property. Although Dr. Clarence Poe won the cup twice, the con- 
dition of winning it three times was not met by any one author. The contest 
was therefore continued indefinitely, at the discretion of the executive com- 
mittee. The following situation has arisen: the space on the cup for engray- 
ing the names of the winners has been entirely filled, and since the cup has 
met adequately the purpose for which it was established, it is deemed best to 
establish the cup, as it is now engraved, as a permanent memorial in the Hall 
of History. 

The effectiveness of the cup as a stimulant to literary effort in North Caro- 
lina will be clear to you from the record of its award. 

In retiring the cup, the executive committee reserves the right to establish 
again, aS soon as practicable, some other form of literary reward, so that it 
will gratify you to know that the idea established by you in the award of the 
Patterson Cup is likely to be a permanent stimulant to literary effort in the 
State. 

It is hardly necessary to express to you the deep appreciation, not only of 
the Literary and Historical Association itself, but of all the people of North 
Carolina, for your sincere interest and codperation in the purposes of the 
State Literary and Historical Association. 

With best wishes and highest regards, 

Sincerely yours, 
ADELAIDE Friss, President. 
R. B. Howse, Secretary. 


WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE; 
SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT 


1. Rural libraries. 

2. “North Carolina Day” in the schools. 

3. The North Carolina Historical Commission. 

4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall. 

5. Fireproof State Library Building and Hall of Records. 

6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina’s record. 
7. North Carolina’s war record defended and war claims vindicated. 
8. Patterson Memorial Cup. 


Contents 


Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session--~--~-~----~-—------- 9 
The American Revolution and Reform in the South, by W. K. Boyd_. 14 


When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Caro- 


lina, 1890-1900, by John BH. White__-------_~-__-__----____- 33 
Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World, 

by Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain_____-----~-----~---~------------ 45 
Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina Among the Southern 

Indian Tribes, by Edmund Schwarze____~-------~-~---------- 53 
Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative Departments, 

by C. C. Pearson__--._~----------------------==---=-=--== 70 
Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina, by L. R. Wilson---_- 73 
North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922, by Mary B. Palmer222 == 87 
The Cult of the Second Best, by Walter Lippmann__--~--_-________ 90 
Members, 1921-1922 ~--------------------------------------= 97 


Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary 
and Historical Association of North Carolina 


Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session 
Raleigh, December 7-8, 1922 


Tuurspay Eventne, DrcemMBrr 7TH 


The twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Histori- 
cal Association of North Carolina was called to order in the auditorium 
of the Woman’s Club of Raleigh, Thursday evening, December 7th, at 
8 o'clock, with President W. K. Boyd in the chair. The session was 
opened with invocation by Rev. Henry G. Lane, pastor of the Church 
of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh. Dr. Boyd then read the annual ad- 
dress of the president. He was followed by Dr. John E. White, Presi- 
dent of Anderson College, who addressed the Association on “When the 
Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Carolina, 1890- 
1900.” After Dr. White’s address there was a reception for the mem- 
bers of the Association, the Folk Lore Society, and their guests, in the 
Club Building. 


Frmax Mornine, DecemBer 8TH 


The Friday morning session, December 8th, was called to order by 
President Boyd at 11 o’clock a.m., in the House of Representatives. 
The President presented to the Association Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, of 
Raleigh, who read a paper entitled, “Two Wake County Editors Whose 
Work Has Influenced the World.” She was followed by Dr. Edmund 
Schwarze, of Winston-Salem, who read a paper on “Missions of the 
Moravians in North Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes.” The 
President then presented Dr. C. C. Pearson, of Wake Forest College, 
who read a paper on “Concerning a History of North Carolina Admin- 
istrative Departments.” He was followed by Dr. L. R. Wilson, of the 
University of North Carolina, whose subject was “Use of Books and 
Libraries in North Carolina.” Miss Mary B. Palmer, who was to read 
the bibliography of North Carolina for the year 1921-1922, was unable 
to be present. She sent in her paper for publication, and Miss Carrie L. 
Broughton, State Librarian, made an exhibit of books of the year. 


10 TwrENTy-sECOND ANNUAL SESSION 


At the conclusion of the exercises the following business was trans- 
acted : 


The president appointed the following: 


Committee on Nominations—W. C. Jackson, W. W. Pierson, Miss 
Carrie L. Broughton. 


Committee on Resolutions—D. H. Hill, Marshall DeL. Haywood, 
Charles Lee Smith. 


Committee on a North Carolina Poetry Society—C. A. Hibbard, 
Miss Nell B. Lewis, Roger McCutcheon, Gerald Johnson, 


This last committee was appointed in response to the following 
resolution : 


“Having canvassed the situation, and feeling that there is a definite interest 
in the criticism and writing of verse, we respectfully petition the President of 
the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to appoint a com- 
mittee of organization with a view to promoting a poetry society for North 


Canemae “N. I. Wars, 
“NELL BATTLE LEWIS, 
“JOHN JORDAN DOUGLASS, 
“C, A. Hipsarp, Chairman.” 


General Julian S. Carr obtained the floor on behalf of the Sir Walter 
Raleigh Memorial Committee. In the course of his remarks he endorsed 
in high terms the services of W. J. Peele in the work on the memorial 
and as a founder of North Carolina State College, and the Literary and 
Historical Association. He offered the following resolution, which was 
carried : 

Resolved, That the movement inaugurated by the North Carolina Historical 


Society in the year 1902 to erect a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh in 
the city of Raleigh be properly reorganized and recognized by this Society. 


Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton offered the following resolution, which 
was carried : 


“We, the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution, wish to 
express ourselves as solidly behind the movement to erect the Sir Walter 
Raleigh monument, and will do everything possible to assist General Carr and 
others interested in this movement. 

(Signed) “Mary HILi1arp HINTON, 
Regent. 
“Nina HOLLAND COVINGTON, 
Recording Secretary.” 


State Literary anp Histortcat Association 11 


b 


This was followed by a third resolution made by Dr. J. Y. Joyner 
and carried, as follows: 


Moved, that General Carr be made Chairman of the Sir Walter Raleigh 
Memorial Committee of twenty-five, and that the chairman, the incoming 
president and the secretary of this association be authorized to select and 
announce the other members of this committee. 


The president, through the secretary, reported the following revised 
constitution, which was carried unanimously : 


NAME 


This association shall be called the State Literary and Historical Associa- 
tion of North Carolina. 


PURPOSES 


The purposes of this association shall be the collection, preservation, pro- 
duction, and dissemination of our State literature and history ; the encourage- 
ment of public and school libraries; the establishment of an historical 
museum ; the inculcation of a literary spirit among our people; the correction 
of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina; and the engender- 
ing of a healthy State pride among the rising generations. 


OFFICERS 


The officers of the association shall be a president, first, second, and third 
vice-presidents, and a secretary, whose terms of office shall be for one year 
and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. They shall be elected 
by the association at its annual meetings, except that vacancies in any office 
may be filled by the executive committee until the meeting of the association 
occurring next thereafter. 

The president shall preside over all the meetings of the association, and 
appoint all members of committees, except where it is otherwise provided, 
and look after the general interest of the association. In case of the death or 
resignation of the president, his successor shall be selected by the executive 
committee from the vice-presidents. 

The secretary shall be the administrative officer of the association. He 
shall keep the books and funds, receive money for the association, and dis- 
burse it for purposes authorized by the executive committee. He shall strive 
by all practicable means to increase the membership and influence of the 
association. 


COMMITTEES 


There shall be an executive committee, composed of the president, the sec- 
retary, and six others, two of whom shall be appointed each year by the 
incoming president, to serve three years: Provided, that at the annual ses- 
sion, 1922, four members shall be elected by the association, as follows: two 
members to serve one year, and two to serve two years. The president, sec- 
retary, and any other three members shall constitute a quorum for the trans- 
action of business. 


2 Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SEssION 


The executive committee shall make programs and arrangements for all 
meetings of the association, supervise all business matters, receive all reports 
of officers, endeavor especially to secure from philanthropic citizens donations 
toward a permanent fund of endowment, and in general promote the purpose 
of the association. The executive committee shall be subject to the general 
supervision of the association. 

There shall be such other committees appointed by the president to serve 
during his term of office for such time and such purposes as he shall see fit. 


MEMBERSHIP 


All persons interested in its purposes and desiring to have a part in pro- 
moting them are eligible to membership in the association. They will be duly 
enrolled upon receipt of the annual membership fee. 


FEES 


The annual membership fee shall be one dollar, to be paid to the secretary. 


MEETINGS 


There shall be one regular annual meeting, the time and place of which 
shall be determined by the executive committee. Other meetings may be 
arranged by the executive committee. 


AUXILIARY SOCIETIES 


Auxiliary societies may be organized, with the advice of, and under the 
supervision of, the executive committee. 


Fripay Arrernoon, DEcEMBER 8TH 


In the rooms of the North Carolina Historical Commission, Chair- 
man W. C. Jackson called to order a conference of North Carolina his- 
tory teachers. Discussion was led by Mr. Charles L. Coon and Mr. Guy 
B. Phillips, and participated in by numerous teachers of history. The 
conference was held Friday afternoon, December 8th. 


Fray Eventne, DecrMBer 8TH 


On Friday evening, December 8th, President Boyd called the meeting 
to order in the auditorium of Meredith College. He presented Prof. 
Louis Graves, of the University of North Carolina, who presented the 
speaker of the evening, Mr. Walter Lippmann, of the New York World. 
Mr. Lippmann read a paper on “The Cult of the Second Best,” after 
which there was brief discussion by question and answer between Mr. 
Lippmann and his audience. At the conclusion of the address Dr. T. P. 
Harrison, of the State College, in a brief and graceful speech rendered 
the report of the Patterson Cup Committee, awarding the cup for 1922 
to Hon. Josephus Daniels, for his book, “Our Navy at War.” 


Strate Literary anp Histortcat AssocraTION 13 


The Committee on Resolutions reported the following resolution, 
which was carried: 


Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North 
Carolina commends the establishment of county libraries, and urges county 
authorities to consider this plan as the most feasible to promote county-wide 
library service. D. H. Hitz, Chairman. 


The Committee on Nominations reported as follows: 


Officers: President—Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem; 1st Vice- 
President—Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh; 2d Vice-President— 
Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest; 3d Vice-President—Mrs. J. R. 
Chamberlain, Raleigh; Secretary—R. B. House, Raleigh. 

Members of the Executive Committee: R. D. W. Connor, Chapel 
Hall; W. K. Boyd, Durham; Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh; ©. C. 
Pearson, Wake Forest. 


The Association adjourned sine die. 


ADDRESSES 


The American Revolution and Reform in the South 


By Wo. K. Boyp Ce 


President State Literary and Historical Association 


The past decade has witnessed a profound change in the public 
opinion and policies of the United States. In 1914 we had placed new 
wine in old bottles and under the domination of a party noted for its 
conservatism we were experimenting with governmental supervision of 
business and finance, adopting a new program of taxation, and con- 
sidering certain measures leading to social democracy; then toward the 
end of the World War we championed a policy of international co- 
operation. Today we have reached a point of extreme reaction. Alarmed 
at the forces unloosed by the cataclysm in Europe we have conceived 
a nebulous state of normaley; for national self-preservation we have 
retired behind the cloak of isolation, political and economie. Alarmed 
at the prevalence of new political and social ideals, free speech is 
limited, free teaching is restricted, personal liberty to travel to and 
fro is denied, and the alien is restrained from seeking in America a 
refuge from old world conditions. Moreover, in reaction against any- 
thing new we have fallen back in national administration into the old ~ 
trough dedicated to the sacred theory of the separation of the powers. 
Today we stand as the most conservative rather than the most progres- 
sive and forward-looking of the great nations of the world. 

The present confusion in opinion, the uncertainty in the national 
state of mind, should be stimulating to those who are historically 
minded. This is not the first period in our national life when existing 
‘nstitutions and the social structure have been questioned; by no means 
the first time when some have turned blindly to the ancient landmarks 
and others have sought an anchorage in new principles. While history 
never repeats and comparisons are always dangerous, there are certain 
phenomena of parallel interest with the present turmoil and uncer- 
tainty; and today the conservative and the radical could do no better 
than to recall and examine from the angle of institutional reform and 
social change that decade which saw the birth of the Republic. For 
the American Revolution was not merely a revolt against the mother 
country resulting in independence; it also unloosed forces in America 
that few foresaw at the beginning of the struggle, and these forces 


State Literary anp Histortcat AssocrIaTIon 15 


produced changes at home as profound and lasting as did the entry of 
a new member into the family of nations. And nowhere were those 
changes more apparent than in the Southern States. It was by virtue 
of the leadership taken in the reform of social and institutional life 
that the South was enabled to assert its great influence in shaping the 
affairs of the nation during the generation after the war; for states- 
manship is never bred in a static atmosphere; for it the spirit of 
dynamic change is essential; and nowhere in America was that spirit 
stronger in the later eighteenth century than in the South. 

I take therefore as the theme of my address the spirit of the Ameri- 
ean Revolution and its reaction on the institutional and social struc- 
ture of the South, the conflict between conservatism and radicalism 
during that epoch-making period in this our home region. To that 
end, let us first consider the background which precipitated the issues. 

From the early days down to 1776 certain fundamental influences 
shaped Southern society. First of these was that of family. In no 
other region of English America did kinship, locality, and descent have 
quite the importance that prevailed south of the Potomac. For this 
there were various reasons. One was economic. In the pioneer days 
land was granted by headrights. Once the land was surveyed and 
entered, wife and children were also of value in clearing the forest, 
cultivating the soil, and in administering the property. Social de 
mands also made the family of distinct value. There were few amuse- 
ments, and the distance from settlement to settlement was great. There- 
fore if relaxation or a change from immediate surroundings was de- 
sired, family and kindred were the only opportunity. Blood rela- 
tionship meant companionship, sympathy, and that relaxation which 
later ages have found in golf clubs and pleasure resorts. 

‘To the same end worked a tradition brought from the old world. No 
worthier ambition occurred to an Englishman than to found a family 
which would preserve its identity from generation to generation. In 
the South encouragement in that purpose existed in the land law. Gen- 
erally the property of persons dying intestate passed to the oldest son, 
and this custom of the law stimulated testators to give preference to 
one heir over others. Moreover, it was possible through entails to 
insure inheritance in one line of descent. So the unity of family prop- 
erty was established, and on the basis of that unity there developed 
an aristocracy of land and family. Thus economic conditions, the need 
for companionship, tradition and the law gave to the family a peculiar 
position; indeed in the South the family had something of the sanctity 
enjoyed by the church in New England. It was in the home, not the 
church, that the great epochs of human life were usually celebrated; 


16 Twenty-seconp AnNUAL SESSION 


there occurred the christenings and marriages, there in garden or 
neighboring field was the burial ground, and often the only churches 
of the community were the private chapels of the great landowners. 
The family was the inner shrine of southern life. 

Second only to the family in importance was the system of local 
government. Indeed the two were intimately connected. In England 
a part of the family ideal was for one or more members to take an 
active part in public affairs. This tradition followed the colonists to 
the new world, and in the South the opportunity was at hand in the 
county court, the prevailing unit of local government. Though vary- 
ing as to detail from colony to colony, the county court everywhere had 
this in common: its members, the justices of the peace, were appointed, 
not elected. The other officers of the county were also appointed, either 
by the court or by the Governor. The powers of these justices were 
not merely judicial; they were also governmental and administrative. 
To be a county justice was a position of no mean importance, and it is 
no wonder that well-established families centered their attention first 
of all on membership in the county court. Generation after generation 
members of the same family were to be found on the local bench. The 
office was a stepping-stone to other positions; to the Legislature, the 
governor’s council, and the office of sheriff. Thus there developed a 
ruling class whose members were bound to each other by ties of public 
service. Its support was indispensable to any one desiring to enter 
public life. 

Like England, also, was the law. Each colony inherited the common 
law and the statutes enacted by Parliament before its foundation. Local 
conditions made possible many modifications of this principle. In New 
England, especially, there were many variations, but in the South there 
was a larger fidelity to English heritage. The law of inheritance and 
wills, equity and the land law, procedure and the division of the courts 
into courts of law and courts of equity—these matters illustrate the 
fidelity to British jurisprudence. How strong was the example of con- 
temporary England is well illustrated by the application of benefit of 
clergy. This custom of the law, by which severe penalties for crime 
were ameliorated, was adopted in Virginia. In 1732, in language 
almost identical with that of the statute of 5 Anne 6, the Virginia 
Legislature declared: 


If any person be convicted of felony, for which he ought to have the benefit 
of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be 
required to read, but, without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and 
reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict. 


Srate Lirerary anp Historicat AssocraTIon 17 


Thus branding and corporal punishment became a substitute for 
hanging by the neck until dead in offenses that were clergiable. This 
adaptation of English practice was not confined to Virginia; it was 
found also in the Carolinas and Georgia, and was not abolished until 
long after the Revolution. 

An important element in the colonial life of the South was religion. 
The warm climate, the close contact of the people with the forces of 
nature, and the comparative loneliness due to sparse settlements begot 
a peculiar emotional temperament. This was a good background for 
religious thought and feeling; for solitude leads to introspection, nature 
suggests an unseen presence, and warmth of climate creates a suscepti- 
bility to emotional appeal. Unfortunately the history of religion was 
characterized by a contest between privilege and equality. In Vir- 
ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, the Church of England was estab- 
lished and the law of the time discriminated in its favor. The 
persecution of Puritans and the exclusion of Quakers in Virginia 
during the seventeenth century, and the question of the extension 
of the Toleration Act to Dissenters in the eighteenth century, are 
familiar themes in the colony’s history. More than this, the law of 
Virginia declared that any one brought up in the Christian faith who 
denied the being of God or the Trinity, that the Christian religion is 
true, or that the scriptures are of divine authority should lose his 
capacity to hold office on first conviction, on a second his right to sue, 
receive gifts and legacies, or to serve as guardian or executor, and he 
was also to suffer three years’ imprisonment. In North Carolina the 
clergymen not of the established Church were subject to militia and 
road service, and in South Carolina the parish organization was made 
a unit of civil government whereby the low country controlled the alien 
settlements of the frontier. In spite of these discriminations the Dis- 
senters increased in numbers until they were in the majority and the 
contest between England and the colonies which ushered in the Revolu- 
tion was paralleled by-a controversy no less notable between the Angli- 
eans and Dissenters for toleration and equality before the law. 

Education and intellectual life also bore the stamp of old world tra- 
ditions. The English ideal that education is the function of the family 
and the individual except in the case of indigent children prevailed. 
Hence it was that the only provision for public education in colonial 
law was exactly that which also existed in England, the training of 
indigent children and orphans through apprenticeship. Suggestive of 
England also was the foundation of privately supported or endowed 
free schools to which poor children were usually admitted free. A 


2 


18 Twenty-seconp AnnuAL SEssIon 

number of these free schools were to be found in Virginia and South 
Carolina, and in the latter colony such schools were supported by clubs 
or societies. The nature of the curriculum in these institutions is 
unknown, but an advertisement for a master to teach a free school in 
Princess Anne County in 1784, required of the candidate ability to 
teach the Latin and Greek languages and surveying. It is not difh- 
cult to see in these schools an effort to duplicate in America the work 
of the endowed grammar schools in England. A few academies identi- 
fied with the Church of England existed. There were also academies © 
established by the Presbyterian clergy of the Carolinas in the genera- 
tion preceding the Revolution; but their growth and expansion was 
limited by the policy of the British Government which would not 
permit them to be chartered. Indeed, toward the support of schools 
by public money the British Government was strongly averse; money 
emitted for that purpose by the North Carolina Assembly in 1754 and 
spent for the colonial cause in the French and Indian War was not 
refunded. 

Yet there was a high type of intellectual hfe among the large planters. 
In South Carolina the dominant interest was science and medicine. In 
Virginia it was law and philosophy, and politics. Robert Carter read 
philosophy with his wife, Jefferson also dabbled in the subject; the 
opinions of the Virginia jurists show a wide knowledge of the English 
common law; and surely no profounder student of polities lived than 
Madison. “In spite of the Virginian’s love for dissipation,” wrote Lian- 
court, “the taste for reading is commoner there, among men of the first 
class than in any other part of America.” However, intellectual life 
did not find expression in the production of books, rather it found an 
outlet through the spoken word. Politics and litigation were something 
more than a personal stake; they were a game to be played for the 
game’s sake, methods of intellectual discipline. There was thus injected 
into public affairs a sort of splendid disinterestedness. It was this 
phase of southern character that William Ellery Channing had in mind 
when he wrote from Richmond in 1799: 


I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yan- 
kee with the genuine confidence of a Virginian. . . . There is one single 
trait that attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues of 
New England: they love money less than we do; they are more disinterested ; 
their patriotism is not tied to their pursestrings. 


Social conditions were characterized by privilege based not on blood, 
-but on wealth. Nowhere in America were there greater inequalities, 
and of these inequalities Virginia was most notable. Wrote Isaac Weld: 


ic 


State Lirerary anp Historrcat AssoCraTion 19 


Instead of the land being equally divided, numerous estates are held by a 
few individuals, who derive large incomes from them, whilst the generality. of 
the people are in a state of mediocrity. Most of the men, also, who possess 
these large estates, having secured a liberal education, which the others have 
not, the distinction between them is still more observable. (Travels, I, 146.) 


These words aptly describe the larger planter class—a class so numer- 
ous in South Carolina, less extensive in North Carolina, and barely 
existent in Georgia. ‘But there was also a large middle class, small 
planters and farmers, professional men, mechanics and yoemen. They 
composed at least half of the population in Virginia and more than half 
in North Carolina. Many of them accumulated property or attained 
intellectual distinction, and thereby rose into the ranks of the aris- 
tocracy. One can almost identify this class by the descriptions of their 
houses, as when a traveler mentions houses built of wood, with wooden 
chimneys coated with clay, whose owners “being in general ignorant of 
the comfort of reading and writing, they want nothing in their whole 
house but a bed, dining-room, and a drawing-room for company.” 

Finally there were the poor whites—rude, shiftless, and unambitious. 
“It is in this country that I saw poor persons for the first time after 
I passed the sea,” wrote Chastellux, “the presence of wretched, miser- 
able huts inhabited by whites whose wan looks and ragged garments 
indicated the direst poverty.” However, the proportion of this class to 
the total population was less “than in any other country of the uni- 
verse.” Not poverty per se, but the contrast between poverty and 
riches impressed the observer. Between Richmond and Fredericksburg 
one might meet a “family party traveling along in as elegant a coach 
as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended 
by several gayly dressed footmen.” He might also meet a “rageed 
black boy or girl driving a lean cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull 
or two, riding or driving as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, 
if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the 
team and its driver.” 

Regarding class distinctions and class feeling we have little informa- 
tion from the natives themselves, especially from members of the 
humbler class. Preéminent among such accounts is the testimony of 
Devereux Jarrett, a Methodist minister : 


We were accustomed to look upon what were called gentle foiks as beings 
of a superior order. For my part, I was quite shy of them and kept off at a 
humble distance. A periwig in those days was a distinguishing badge of 
gentle folks, and when I saw a man riding the road, near our house, with a 
wig on, it would so alarm my fears and give me such a disagreeable feeling 
that I dare say I would run off as for my life. Such ideas of the difference 
between gentle and simple were, I believe, universal among my rank. (Life, 
p. 14.) ; 


20 TwENTy-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


That slavery tended to intensify class distinctions is an axiom to 
which Jefferson bore ample testimony. But to the serious inquirer the 
more notable characteristic of Southern slavery in the later eighteenth 
century was its unprofitableness and a widespread desire to see it abol- 
ished. Weld wrote: 


The number of slaves increased most rapidly, so that there is scarcely any 
State but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by every 
planter, as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture of the 
estate is attended with great expense. (Travels, I, 147.) 


In 1774 the wife of Robert Carter agreed with Philip Fithian, the 
family tutor, that if all the slaves were sold on the plantation, and the 
money put at interest, there would be a “greater yearly income than 
what is now received from their working the lands,” to say nothing of 
the risk and trouble assumed by the master as to crops and negroes. 
And this opinion was confirmed in greater detail by St. George Tucker 
in 1804: 


It would be a very high estimate should one suppose the generality of 
farmers to make ten per cent per annum upon the whole value of their lands 
and slaves. I incline to believe that very few exceed eight per cent, and out 
of this the clothing and provisions of their slaves and horses employed in 
making the crop ought to. be deducted. A net profit of five per cent is proba- 
bly more than remains to one in twenty for the support of himself and his 
family. If he wants money to increase his stock, even the legal demands and 
speculators’ pay, without scruple will amount to fourfold, perhaps tenfold, his 
profits. (Commentaries on Blackstone.) 


In South Carolina also there was a similar sentiment. LaRochefou- 
cauld-Liancourt, writing in 1799, made a careful estimate of the eco- 
nomic profits of slave labor in that State and concluded that it was $68 
per head and that white labor would bring a larger return. 

This condition was one basis of a widespread desire to see slavery 
abolished. Finch wrote: 


Before I visited the Southern States, I supposed that all the planters were 
in favor of the system of slavery. But I did not meet with a single indi- 
vidual who did not regret having this species of property, and shew a wish to 
remedy it, if there was any possible mode by which it could be accomplished. 
(Travels, 240.) 


Said Russel Goodrich before the Alexandria Society for Promoting 
Useful Knowledge, in 1791: 
But let our planters become farmers—it would be a memorable idea; our 


fields, touched with a magic wand, would bloom; our slaves become freemen ; 
our improvement excite universal attention. 


State Lirerary anp HistrortcaL ASSOCIATION 21 


Such were the institutions and economic conditions peculiar to the 
South in the eighteenth century. It was a land of many contrasts. 
Political oligarchies ruled, yet there was a certain disinterested devo- 
tion to the public service, and the section’s greatest contribution to 
national life was in the domain of political thought. Refinement and 
culture of a high type existed, but along with it much ignorance and 
coarseness. Love of liberty was challenged by the existence of chattel 
slavery. The bounty of nature was rebuked by wasteful production. 
Souls susceptible to religious appeal were steeped in material aims and 
deistic philosophy. What traits of character distinguished the South- 
erner from his neighbor northward? What kind of men and women 
did such conditions produce? The answer is suggested by a remark 
of Bernard in his Retrospects. Speaking of the Virginia planters he 
says, “Like the old feudal barons, their whole life is a temptation 
through absence of restraint.” Life in a vast, bountiful and unde- 
veloped region, life in intimate contact with the blind forces of nature, 
life without the limitations of a small unit of local government, life 
without adequate means of intellectual discipline or adequate religious 
institutions, life with hosts of dependent servile blacks; under such 
conditions character was molded with no restraint from without; men 
and women developed according to the dictates of emotion and will. 
Thus the Southerner was notable for his individuality, for his non- 
conformity to type or pattern. This individuality, resulting from ab- 
sence of restraint, in turn produced certain traits well outlined by 
Thomas Jefferson when contrasting Northern and Southern character: 


N. S. 
cool fiery 
sober voluptuous 
laborious indolent 
persevering unsteady 
independent independent 
jealous of their own liberties zealous for liberty, but trampling 
and just to those of others. on that of others. 


Upon such a region and such a people the American Revolution had 
a profound reaction. Its justification was found in the compact theory 
of government popularized by the Declaration of Independence. That 
all men are created equal meant, in the light of the revenue controversy, 
equality of economic liberties. That all governments derive their 
authority from the consent of the governed meant in the relation of 
colonies to the mother country, self-governing but component parts of 
a British Empire. These were concepts which only radicals and obscure 


22 Twernty-seconp ANNUAL SEssION 


men then grasped; when they were rejected by the authorities in power 
independence was the only alternative. But when the choice of inde- 
pendence was made, what were the implications of that equality and 
that government by consent to the citizens of the states in revolt? Spe- 
cifically, what were their implications in a section with a well-established 
landed aristocracy, ruled by petty judicial oligarchies, more English 
than American in its system of law, without educational opportunities 
for all, where the concept of liberty was challenged by chattel slavery 
and religion was characterized by the privilege of one denomination ? 
It is worthy of note that the man who more than any other realized 
the contrast between the political theory of the Revolution and the 
institutions and conditions peculiar to the South was Thomas J effer- 
son. Within three months after the Declaration was adopted he re- 
signed from the Continental Congress, returned to Virginia, and be- 
came a member of the Legislature with the distinct purpose of agitating 
democratic reform. He says: 


When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our whole code 
must be revised, adapted to our republican form of government, and now that 
we had no negations or councils, governors and kings to restrain us from 
doing right, that it should be corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to 
reason, and the good of those for whose government it was formed. (Memoir.) 


In one direction the course of reform was already under way, that 
of religious freedom. In June the Virginia Convention had adopted 
a constitution, and in the Bill of Rights there was a declaration that 
“all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according 
to the dictates of conscience.” This meant the abolition of religious 
discrimination, that persecutions were no longer possible, and that men 
of all religious persuasions could participate in government if they 
met the proper secular tests. It was far in advance of North Caro- 
lina’s, for there the right to hold office was denied to those who rejected 
the being of God, the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine 
authority of the Old and New Testaments. In Georgia, likewise, the 
constitution of 1777 declared for freedom of religion but required 
all members of the Legislature to be of the Protestant religion, 
and not until 1790 was the principle of religious freedom 
fully triumphant in South Carolina. Thus Virginia led the 
South; moreover it led the nation, for in no other of the first state 
constitutions was the principle of unrestricted religious freedom enun- 
ciated; only Rhode Island, which continued its colonial charter, reached 
a similar plane. More than this, the Virginia declaration was the first 
of the kind to be embodied in a modern constitution anywhere. 


State Lirerary anp Hisrorrcat Association 23 


However a question of equal importance was not settled, the relation- 
ship between the State and the established church. Many of the Dis- 
senters held that the Virginia declaration destroyed that relationship ; 
the Anglicans that it did not. Thus when the Legislature assembled 
in October there were many petitions; some, mainly from Presbyterians 
and Baptists, prayed for a final separation of church and state; others, 
submitted by Anglicans and members of the Methodist societies, asked 
for a continuation of the establishment. Of the committee to which 
these were referred Jefferson was a member. His sympathies. were 
entirely for disestablishment, but against him were Edmund Pen- 
dleton, the jurist, and Robert Carter Nicholas, patriot. For two months 
there was a deadlock. Then as a compromise the English statutes 
which made criminal religious opinions were declared invalid, the Dis- 
senters were exempted from the payment of church taxes, and all others 
were likewise exempted for one year. This was practically, but not 
theoretically, disestablishment. Coercion over opinion had previously 
gone, and taxes now relinquished were never reimposed. 

It is somewhat difficult for us today to realize the significance of 
these changes in organic law. The men who promoted them were of 
English extraction, and for a thousand years there had been in the 
mother country an established church, the acknowledgment in law and 
institutions of national allegiance to God. For a group of provincials, 
English in origin and tradition, ruthlessly and suddenly to sever the 
historic relationship between religion and government marked them as 
radicals. States embarking on such a policy were entering an uncharted 
sea and there were grave predictions as to the future. In fact in Vir- 
ginia many believed that standards of conduct were lowered and the 
morals of the people corrupted by this break with the past. Typical 
was Richard Henry Lee. He wrote: 


Refiners may weave reason into as fine a fabric as they please, but the 
experience of all times shows religion to be the guardian of morals; and he 
must be a very inattentive observer in our country who does not see that 
avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obliga- 
tion to contribute something to its support. (Lee, Lee, II, 5.) 


Naturally the traditionalists gathered strength and in 1784 they sub- 
mitted to the Legislature two measures, one to incorporate such religious 
societies as would apply for incorporation, the other that the people 
ought to pay “a moderate tax or contribution annually for the support 
of the Christian religion.” Both these resolutions were adopted and the 
Episcopal Church, applying for incorporation, was promptly chartered. 
However the second resolution, calling for taxation, required a statute; 


94. Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


through the influence of Madison the bill was deferred until the next 
session in order to sound the sentiment of the people. There followed 
a notable campaign, and when the Legislature next met it was evident 
that Virginians had spoken against any renewal of church taxes. Taking 
advantage of the situation, a bill for religious freedom written by Jeffer- 
son was introduced and was adopted. It established nothing new; but 
it did state in form of statute the ideal of complete religious liberty; 
while toleration widely existed no State hitherto had enacted that prin- 
ciple into statute law. This distinction again belongs to Virginia. The 
incorporation of the Episcopal Church was repealed, and this was fol- 
lowed by the policy of confiscating its property, a process not completed 
until 1802. 

In one other Southern state the religious problem proved serious. 
That was South Carolina. There disestablishment was a political issue 
bound up with the reform of representation. The constitution of 1777 
made a compromise. The privilege of the Anglican Church was re- 
moved by admitting other churches to incorporation, but the ideal of a 
relationship between religion and government was preserved, for it 
declared that the Christian Protestant religion should be the religion of 
the State and every member of the House of Representatives should be 
of that faith. This was not in harmony with the democratic spirit of 
the time and in 1790 the religious qualification was abolished and the 
free exercise of religion was guaranteed. 

What was the significance of this controversy over religious liberty 
and disestablishment? It was something more than a contest for private 
judgment; it was a part of the democratic movement of the time, in- 
spired by the doctrine of the equality of man and the consent of the 
governed. It was also a phase of the contest for power between the 
tidewater and the piedmont regions. The results of the movement were 
vastly important. It reacted on the general state of culture. In New 
England intellectual life tended toward the spiritual; it was dominated 
by theology; in the South it was materialistic, leaning toward law, 
philosophy, and deism. Now the triumph of religious liberty and dis- 
establishment at first strengthened the forces of materialism and deism, 
and the cause of religion, whether ritualistic or evangelical, was re- 
tarded. Said Isaac Weld: 


Throughout the lower part of Virginia—that is, between the mountains and 
the sea—the people have scarcely any sense of religion, and in the country 
the churches are falling into decay. As I rode along, I scarcely observed one 
that was not in a ruinous condition, with the windows broken, doors dropping 
off the hinges, and lying open to the pigs and cattle wandering about the 
weeds. 


Strate Lirerary anp Historrcat AssocraTIon : 25 


No greater revolution occurred in the life of the Southern people than 
that in the early years of the nineteenth century when, through a series 
of revivals, the mind of the masses was swung from the popular skepti- 
cism of the day to the fervid acceptance of the orthodox teachings of the 
evangelical churches. 

Finally the religious controversy had an influence on political his- 
tory. Jefferson espoused the cause of the religious liberty. He was 
widely denounced for this policy and his record was cited against him 
in the presidential campaigns of 1796 and 1800. Madison’s share in 
the movement was also capitalized by his opponents. But both men 
had won the admiration and loyalty of thousands of Dissenters, who 
were for the most part small farmers and men of small means. It was 
therefore easy to organize them into opposition to an economic policy 
hostile to their interests, the policy best represented by the Hamiltonian 
financial measures. Indeed as a tribute to Jefferson a new church or- 
ganized in 1792 was named for his party, the Republican Methodist 
Church. 

The problem of religion was by no means the only reaction of the 
political philosophy of the Revolution on Southern society. Besides 
an established church there existed an aristocracy of wealth and politi- © 
cal power. How far could it be justified during a war waged in 
behalf of equality of economic liberties and government by consent ? 
Again the principal stage of the controversy was Virginia. There the 
basis of the aristocracy was the land law. Towards entails the policy 
of the colony was more conservative than England, for while entails 
might be docked by judicial proceeding in the mother country, in the 
colony an act of the legislature was essential unless the property was less 
than £200 in value. Primogeniture was strictly enforced and inheritance 
always descended. Because of entails and primogeniture there arose in 
tidewater Virginia “a distinct set of families” who formed a kind of 
patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their 
establishments. From this order the King habitually selected his Coun- 
cillors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to 
the interests and will of the Crown.’ Indeed society tended to stratifica- 
tion. At the apex were the great landowners, protected by the laws of 
inheritance. Below them were the half breeds, younger sons who 
inherited the pride but not the wealth of their parents; next the pre- 
tenders, men who had acquired wealth and property by their own 
efforts and were anxious to rise into the aristocratic class. Finally were 
the yeomen or great mass of small farmers, caring little for social dis- 
tinction, on whom depended the real progress of Virginia. 


26 TweENTyY-sEconD ANNUAL SESSION 


More distinctly than in the question of religion the leadership in land 
reform was assumed by Jefferson. In October 1776, while the dis- 
cussion of the church question was under way, he introduced a bill “to 
enable tenants in taille to convey land in fee simple.” After strenuous 
opposition it was adopted. At one stroke the privileged position of en- 
tailed property was overthrown, for, said the law, all that “hath or 
hereafter may have” an estate in fee taille should stand in possession 
of the same “in full and absolute fee simple.” That so radical a measure 
should have been so readily adopted is remarkable; it is ample evidence 
that the Revolution was more than a revolt against England. Jefferson’s 
aim in changing the land law was to “make an opening for the aris- 
tocracy of virtue and ‘talent, which nature has wisely provided for and 
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions.” 

But the abolition of entails was only the beginning of legal reform; 
there remained primogeniture, the criminal law, and the whole British 
heritage. These matters were referred to a committee of five. It made 
a report in 1779; only a few of its recommendations were then adopted, 
but in 1784 through the influence of Madison the report was published, 
and the second bulwark of landed aristocracy, primogeniture, was 
abolished. In its place was adopted a statute of descents. The eighteen 
clauses of this law are unsurpassed in all America as a species of revolt 
against British heritage. The rule of inheritance of the common law 
required the property of one dying intestate always to descend, never to 
ascend. A father could not inherit from a son, nor a grandfather from 
a grandson. Also the male issue was always preferred before the female; 
if there were no male heir the female heirs inherited equally. On the 
failure of lineal descendants the only collateral relations who could 
inherit were those “of the blood of the first purchaser”; that is, a kins- 
man, say a cousin of ten or twenty removes, would be preferred to a 
half brother. Now this whole structure of inheritance which had been 
built up in England and had been transplanted to Virginia, was swept 
away and intestate estates were directed to pass in equal shares to the 
children and their descendants; if there were none, to the father; if 
there was no father living, then to the mother, brothers, sisters, and 
their descendants; and if these were failing, the estate should be 
divided into two parts, one to go to the maternal kindred and the other 
to the paternal kindred. 

This law removed the last privilege of the landed aristocracy. Its 
author was Jefferson. In the committee on revision Pendleton opposed 
it and wished to preserve the tradition of primogeniture by adopting 
the Hebrew principle of giving “a double portion to the elder son.” 
Says Jefferson: 


State Literary snp Histortcat AssocraTIon Path 


I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double the 
work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but 
being on a par in his power and wants with his brothers and sisters, he 
should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the 
decision of the other members. 


Virginia was not alone in the reform of the land law. In South 
Carolina entails had been abolished in 1732 and in 1790 the rule of 
primogeniture was likewise set aside. Georgia in the constitution of 
1777 prohibited primogeniture and required an equal division of prop- 
erty among the heirs. Not until 1784 was the reform accomplished in 
North Carolina, but the change was not so drastic as elsewhere, for male 
heirs were given preference over females; subsequent laws of 1795 and 
1808 placed the matter on a practical parity with Virginia law. 

That the course of land legislation influenced southern society pro- 
foundly was the conviction of native observers and foreign travellers. 
Not merely were existing entails destroyed, not merely was primogeni- 
ture abolished, but custom supported the principle. “The cases are rare, 
very rare,” says Tucker, “in which a parent makes by his will a much 
more unequal division of property among his children than the law 
itself would make.” Thus came a fairer distribution of wealth. 


There is no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates, 
who, in a luxurious and ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of 
the community; a much larger number of those who are wealthy have ac- 
quired their estates by their own talents or enterprise; and most of these 
last are commonly content with reaching the average of that more moderate 
standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the higher 
scale which it tolerates. Thus there were formerly many in Virginia who 
drove a coach and six, and now such an equipage is never seen. There were 
probably twice or three times as many four-horse carriages before the Revo- 
lution as there are at present, but the number of two-horse carriages may be 
now ten or even twenty times as great as at the former period. A few fami- 
lies, too, could boast of more plate than can now be met with: but the whole 
quantity in the country has increased twenty if not fifty fold. (Life of Jeffer- 
son, p. 93.) 


A similar result is attributed to the abolition of primogeniture in 
South Carolina. Murray wrote: 


The planters are generally impoverished by the division of property; they 
have lost many of their patrician notions (call them, if you will, prejudices). 
The increased commerce has raised to affluence, and consequently into fashion- 
able society, many merchants with whom the planters would not associate on 
terms of intimacy fifty years ago; thus, while the society of Boston, Philadel- 
phia, and New York is daily becoming more aristocratic, that of the Carolina 
capital is becoming more republican. (Travels, II, 188.) 


28 TWENTy-sEconD ANNUAL SEssIon 


Undoubtedly the Revolution wrought a change in the institution of 
private property and thereby altered the social structure. But the 
doctrine of the equality of man went further; it questioned the existing 
attitude of the law toward crime and the criminal and ushered in the 
modern humanitarian spirit. To the conservative mind of the eighteenth 
century severe penalties were essential; the protection of property was a 
supreme aim of government and the reform of the criminal was ignored. 
To the reformer, inspired by the doctrine of equality, penalties must 
be examined in the light of reason and the life and character of the 
criminal deserved consideration. Again the conflict between the forces 
of conservatism and reform centered in Virginia. There twenty-seven 
offenses incurred the penalty of death and among non-capital punish- 
ments were the lash, the stocks, slitting of ears, and branding. Again 
also the pioneer in the movement for reform was Thomas Jefferson. He 
was the author of a bill proportioning crimes and punishments, the 
pioneer of the modern humanitarian spirit. Says the statute: 


And whereas the reformation of offenders, though an object worthy the 
attention of the laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which 
exterminate instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource 
against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their 
fellow-citizens, which also weakens the State by cutting off so many, who, if 
reformed, might be restored sound members to society, who, even under a 
course of correction, might be rendered useful in various labors for the public, 
and would be, living, an example and long-continued spectacle to deter others 
from committing the like offenses. And forasmuch as the experience of all 
ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their 
own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecu- 
tions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias; and by producing in 
many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon 
and benefit of clergy ; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the 
injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the 
laws observed; and the power of dispensation, so dangerous and mischievous, 
which produces crimes by holding up a hope of impunity, might totally be 
abolished, so that men, while contemplating to perpetrate a crime, would see 
their punishment ensuing as necessity, as effects their causes, etc. 


For such reasons the revisors proposed to reduce the twenty-seven 
capital crimes to two, treason and murder, and one-half of the property 
of those convicted should be forfeited to the next of kin of the one 
killed; corporal punishment and imprisonment were to be the penalties 
for most other offenses; however, for a few crimes, such as disfiguring 
another, “by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off 
a nose, lip, or ear, branding, otherwise shall be maimed” the principle 
of the Jex talionts was to be adopted. This latter feature of the bill 
did not meet the approval of Jefferson. He wrote: 


Strate Literary anp Histortcan AssocraTIon 29 


The Lex Talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, to the sim- 
plicity of which we have generally found it so difficult to return, will be 
revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and 
a hand for a hand, and a tooth for a tooth, will exhibit spectacles in execu- 
tion whose moral effect would be questionable; and even the membrum pro 
memobro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although 
long authorized by our law, for the same offense in a slave, has, you know, 
been not long since repealed in conformity with public sentiment. This needs 
reconsideration. : 


The proposed reform met bitter opposition. Minds that could not 
resist the cause of religious freedom, the separation of church and 
state, and the reform of the land law, would not yield to the heresy 
that penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the causes for 
execution be reduced to two. And so in 1785 Jefferson’s bill was re- 
jected. However, the revision of the criminal law was bound up with 
another issue: that of the survival of British statutes. The Convention 
of 1776 had declared the statutes prior to James I binding on Virginia. 
The abolition of this ordinance now became the objective of the re- 
formers. It was accomplished in 1789 when the legislature repealed the 
ordinance. A new commission was then appointed to revise the law and 
at length in 1792 a code was reported and adopted in which all English 
statutes were declared to have no force in Virginia. With the law 
thus purged of British heritage, the humanitarian spirit had freer play 
and in 1796, the same session in which the first public school law was 
adopted and a plan for gradual emancipation of slavery considered, a 
bill was introduced to amend the penal laws by reducing the death 
penalties to two, and imposing on non-capital offenses service in a 
penitentiary where the character of the criminal might be reformed. A 
new champion of the cause now appeared, George Keith Taylor. Ina 
notable speech he assembled all the arguments of the time in favor of 
humanitarianism. The existing penalties, he declared, were in violation 
of natural rights, for in the state of nature each man defends himself, 
but when he repels the mischief the “law commands him to pardon the 
offender.” Life can be taken only in case of murder. “Against all other 
offenses I can either obtain effectual security at first, or effectual recom- 
pense afterwards. But against the murderer I can obtain neither. 
. . . Necessity therefore compels me to put him to death.” 

This law of nature becomes the fundamental law of states because, 
under the social compact from which governments have their origin, no 
power to impose the death penalty except for murder is granted. It is 


30 TweEntTy-sEconpD ANNUAL SESSION 


also wasteful, for society loses units of production and no recompense 
is made to the person injured. Benefit of clergy as means of ameliorat- 
ing the law simply makes the offender a marked man. 


Every one avoids him, no one chooses to give employment to a felon; but he 
must live, and, consequently, deprived of all means of honest subsistence, is 
compelled to continue his former course of iniquity. 


Nor are harsh penalties in conformity to the philosophy of law. In 
a warm climate people are indolent and hate work; compulsory labor, 
therefore, is a better deterrent to crime than the threat of death. Severe 
laws do not improve manners; therefore adopt penalties that appeal to 
the sense of shame. Put into the criminal code something of the spirit 
of forgiveness and kindness of Christianity. Finally, let laws harmonize 
with the needs of population and let them not needlessly diminish the 
number of laborers in a land where labor is scarce. 

Such were typical arguments of Taylor; they reflect as wide a read- 
ing in the social and political philosophy of the time as do writings of 
Jefferson or Madison. As a result the bill was not tabled but was 
adopted. The capital crimes were reduced to two, benefit of clergy was 
abolished, except for slaves, and the penitentiary was substituted for 
other offenses that had been capital. 

Closely akin to the nascent sense of humanitarianism was the new 
spirit in education. As soon as the British administration collapsed, 
a new ideal of the obligation of the government toward intellectual 
training appeared; instead of a responsibility confined to the orphans 
and the poor, came a general obligation. Thus the State constitutions 
of North Carolina and Georgia clearly proclaimed the principle of 
State support of schools and universities. Moreover, education should 
be reformed and adapted to American needs rather than to European 
heritage. Thus during the war the Virginians reorganized the con- 
servative College of William and Mary into a university and there were 
established a school of modern languages, a professorship of law, the 
first in the United States, and one of medicine, the second in the coun- 
try. Georgia in 1783 adopted a comprehensive scheme for public high 
schools, one for each county, and in 1785 a plan for a State University 
which would include all the institutions of education in the State, and 
stimulate the cause of literature, was adopted. It was too advanced for 
actual conditions and so it remained for North Carolina to make the 
first practical educational achievement of the new era, the opening of 
the University in 1795. There is no greater tragedy in all southern 
history, with the exception of the survival of slavery, than the failure of 
the revolutionary philosophy in the realm of education. The traditions 


Strate Lirerary anp Histortcan AssocraTION 31 


of the past, the aversion to taxation, and the impractical, even aris- 
tocratic, character of the ideal which looked for political leadership 
rather than elevation of the masses, fixed its doom. A similar fate 
awaited the anti-slavery sentiment; to the doctrine of the equality of 
man, human bondage was intolerable, but no practical method of 
emancipation which would evade a race problem was ever formulated. 

From the facts and tendencies thus outlined it is evident that the 
American Revolution wrought a profound reaction on the institutions 
and social structure of the South of colonial days. The results were 
religious freedom, a greater equality of property rights, reform of the 
criminal laws, efforts at public education and the emancipation of slaves. 
No wiser definition of history was ever made than the statement that 
it is philosophy teaching by example. What then, in the broader mean- 
ing of these terms, should the example of the Revolution contribute to 
our knowledge of the philosophy of politics and the nature of free 
society ? 

First of all, no great war can oceur without making some modification 
or radical change in the internal life of the belligerent nations. Indeed 
I believe that war is often but one manifestation of a spirit of change 
or revolution working in civil as well as martial fields. At times 
reaction checks or opposes this spirit of change but in the end reaction 
gives way and readjustment takes place. Shakespeare grasped this 
idea in Julius Cesar; he put into the mouth of Brutus just before 
the battle of Phillippi the memorable words: 


There is a tide in the affairs of men that leads onward. 


It is the task of the thoughtful and earnest citizen to know this tide, 
to work with it, to guide and direct it, never to seek to impede it. Such 
is statesmanship. The great failure of Brutus was not the loss of a 
battle but his failure to realize that the foundations of the Republic 
were already gone and that the irresistible tide of the age was toward 
imperialism. No fine trait of personal character, no patriotic devotion 
to the past can obscure this fundamental fault—that the man had not 
the brains to understand forces greater than his own convictions. 

In the period of the Revolution Jefferson and Madison caught the 
meaning of the revolt against Great Britain and swung with the tide. 
This is the basis of their statesmanship. Those who opposed them, 
though estimable in personal character, have today a minor place on 
the page of history. 

Another reflection which must come if any comparison be drawn be- 
tween the problems of the Revolution and those of today, is the futility 


32 TweEnty-seconp AnnuUAL SEssIon 


of applying to one age the political and social philosophy of the past. 
The apostles of progressivism reject the social compact theory as a 
basis for their program. They see in the natural right of the individ- 
ual to life, liberty, and happiness, laissez faire individualism. In con- 
trast how often do we hear conservatives say, “Give us the democracy of 
Jefferson.” But viewed in the light of conditions as they existed in 
the eighteenth century the Jeffersonian ideal could be attained only by 
the abolition of special privilege, whether it was the privilege of church 
or landowner, by a new treatment of the criminal and of the enemies 
of society, and a new sense of state control over intellectual discipline. 
This in that day and time was radicalism. Apply seriously the principle 
of the equality of man and the consent of the governed, even the right 
to life, liberty, and happiness, to modern conditions and what will be the 
fate of tax exemption and certain financial problems, the present atti- 
tude of courts toward labor, and even the curriculum of our schools 
and colleges? If any have doubts let them read Jefferson’s remarks or, 
better still, those of his friend John Taylor, on such matters as the 
nature of industry, the character of government bond issues, the nature 
of banking, and the best working type of democracy. 

In conclusion I wish to raise this pertinent question: how much of 
the past really lives today, how much of it do we really inherit? The 
answer, I believe, is, of the forms very much, of the spirit very little. 
Let me illustrate. The statutes of descents adopted in the period of the 
Revolution still live; but the condition against which they were aimed, 
an unequal distribution of wealth, again exists, and in the light of this 
fact the statutes are ineffective formule. The humanitarian sentiment 
of the Revolution today has many monuments in the shape of penal 
institutions; but how often is the spirit and purpose, the reformation 
of the offender, submerged by the monuments? Again, religious freedom 
undoubtedly has survived. But the principle on which that freedom is 
based, the liberty of the human spirit and its right to opinion, is seri- 
ously challenged. Words and sentiments expressed freely by Jefferson 
and Lincoln, when today uttered, too often bring prosecution and im- 
prisonment. The old conception of the fathers, that thought and 
speech must be free, no longer exists. We live in an age of restraint, 
not of absence of restraint. 

Now, since the forms rather than the spirit of the past survive, is 
not he who really achieves something, whether he calls it conservatism 
or not, breaking new ground, and is he not therefore potentially a 
radical ? 


When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in 
North Carolina 


1890-1900 


By JoHN E. WurrEe 
President Anderson College 


Of course I am greatly pleased to be here as the guest of the North 
Carolina Literary and Historical Association, but if I should attempt 
to tell you why I am so pleased it would involve me at once with an old 
problem which has worried me enough already—the problem of the 
sensitive psychosis of the North Carolinian living away from home. It 
is difficult to explain that man satisfactorily. Some months ago I 
sought out the old Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem and was there 
trying to locate without immediate success the grave of John Henry 
Boner. An elderly gentleman walking by observed my search and 
guided me to the spot. “Are you interested in his poetry?” he asked. 
“Yes—no; I am more interested in the man. He is the man who broke 
his heart trying to interpret the sorrow and justify the conscience of a 
North Carolinian forced to live somewhere else.” Standing there with 
this kind old gentleman, a minister of the Moravian church, I repeated 
the lines which North Carolinians know and love so well. 

Why is it the “Tarheel” exile reacts within himself so keenly and 
yet so unsatisfactorily to his own conscience? He has all the inward- 
ness of an interminable identity with North Carolina; cherishes the 
sense of it as a good fortune; avows the pride of it everywhere ardently; 
and yet feels that he is somehow guilty of a dreadful inconsistency. 
Have you not noticed that he is the most over-conscious North Caro- 
linian in the world? I suppose it is because he has spoiled his right to 
be. He tries to make up to his conscience by protests of devotion. He 
revels in the zeal of the repentant renegade. I have often heard him 
at it on his visits home, fervently insisting that 


“Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred,” 


he is going to die sometime far, far away, 


“Mid pleasures and palaces,” 


and that if anybody should inquire about the lonely corpse, just tell 
them it’s 
“A Tar Heel dead.” 
Sometimes I have fancied that the elder brothers hear this prodigal’s 
proposition impatiently and doubtfully, distrusting so much “Tar Heel” 
virtue that has to make apologies and excuses for itself. The elder 


3 


. 


34 Twernty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


brothers never do understand and never can understand. It is only the 
prodigal who knows. And what he knows is this: that though he may 
die condemned he never was really guilty. In his Reminiscences, Alex- 
ander H. Stephens refers to a conversation with Reagan, of Texas, his 
fellow prisoner at Fort Warren after Lee’s surrender, about their asso- 
ciation and associates in Congress before the Civil War. He recalled a 
certain congressman named Felix O’Connell, and asked Reagan if he 
remembered him. “Yes, he was a very profane man and nearly always 
drunk.” “That is true,” said Stephens, “but he was the most religious 
man in Congress and about the only one who made it a point to attend 
the chaplain’s prayer reverently. One day after his morning devotions 
in the House he took a seat beside me and said, ‘Mr. Stephens, you are a 
Christian, aren’t you? I have something to say to you, something that 
gnaws at my heart. My wife is a beautiful Christian, a saint on earth, 
and when she dies she will go right straight to heaven.’ Then with 
broken voice he said, ‘Mr. Stephens, I am afraid it will be the last L 
will see of her and that when I die I will go right straight to hell. But 
what I want to say to you is that if the good Lord does send me to hell 
He will lose one of the best friends He ever had in this world.’” 

Now, I might have been invited somewhere else by some other literary 
and historical society, without wondering why; but sent for to come 
here under such dignified auspices, it is very different. I have heard 
of an Irishman who on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he 
would have a drink of good old apple brandy, made no reply at first, 
but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. “What are 
you looking at, Mike?” inquired his friend. “Bedad, sir,” said Mike, “I 
thought an angel spoke to me.” Somewhat so did I feel at first, Mr. 
President, when I received the invitation to be your guest this evening. 

The second reflection on the invitation was more sobering. I began to 
question whether I was prepared to accept its scrutiny. Down in Atlanta 
we had a Deacon who was reported to his fellow Deacons as inclined to 
indulge over-much on occasions. A committee was appointed to visit 
him. They did so in due and solemn form. “Brother Henry,” said the 
spokesman, “do you ever drink?” He looked at the committee, who 
were his companions and personal friends, and said, “Brethren, before I 
answer, may I ask you if this is an invitation or an investigation ?” 
Your invitation to me, I assure you, was not accepted without hesitation. 

It was the suggestion of your secretary that gave me at length enough 
confidence to venture. He indicated that I might deal profitably with 
North Carolina events from 1890 to 1900. I had been in a position to 
observe and somewhat to participate in the agitations of that period im 


Strate Literary anp Histroricat Association 35 


this State with reference to education. There were incidents and in- 
fluences of historical fact and value in those times, of which no fair 
record had been made. Could I not, after the chastening of twenty years’ 
absence from the State, set them in dispassionate order with emphasis 
only upon their bearing on the greater matters which followed after? 
So I am here to speak to you on “When the Tide Began to Turn for 
Popular Education in North Carolina.” 

I have referred to the disadvantages of the exile. There are some 
compensations. Distance does lend enchantment, and detachment does 
minister to judgment. I can, for instance, report on the impression 
North Carolina is now making for herself in the South and in the 
nation with more appreciation than if I were a part of it. You who 
are doing the work are conscious of disappointments and dissatisfactions 
with the State’s achievements which do not trouble me. What is it that 
people in every section of this country are saying about North Carolina? 
They are saying to one another in critical comparisons, that North 
Carolina is the premier commonwealth of the South in progressive 
movements and that she is measuring pace with any State in the 
Union. Her achievements within twenty years have struck across the 
imagination of the whole country as remarkable and almost revolu- 
tionary. She has moved from the seventh place to the twenty-seventh 
in the value of manufactured products. She is a file leader of the 
nation in contribution of Federal taxes in support of the government. 
In the textile industry she contributes more to the demand markets and 
in the promotion of income to the cotton farmers of the South than any 
other State. She produces fifty per cent of all the lumber manufactured 
in the United States. She has first rank in minerals. So the reports 
run all along the line, of good roads and material improvements. But 
these things are not what attract the most astonished attention abroad. 
It is what the State has done in public education that makes greatest 
amazement. This is the achievement of fundamental relations to all 
other progress. 

Tue Astounpine Contrast 


The educational expert coming from elsewhere to survey the widely- 
reported progress in North Carolina would observe two facts of con- 
clusive import about what he finds in actual operation. 

First: That the State has committed itself unreservedly to the ac- 
ceptance and demonstration of the democratic theory of education. 
What is it? It is the theory in repugnance of the aristocratic theory 
in education. It proposes education by the State in logical construction ; 
that is, big and broad foundations first, with superstructures in their 


36 TweENTy-sEconD ANNUAL SESSION 


practical order. To be explicit, the common schools first, secondary 
schools second, collegiate and technical institutions third, and without a 
blind alley anywhere. 

Second: That popular education in North Carolina is really popular. 
It is enthroned in the imagination and conscience of the people. Its 
enterprise rests securely in the affections of the citizen heart. 

Now what is the historical bearing of these two facts of attainment in 
1922 on the situation of education in North Carolina from 1890 to 
19002 Simply this—Within less than a quarter of a century, North 
Carolina has shifted her whole front in popular education. It is a 
complete reversal of disposition and habit for a whole people. As a 
social phenomenon it is most remarkable. 

In 1890, the undemocratic theory of education prevailed in the 
practical attitude of North Carolina educational leaders. That leader- 
ship was absorbed mainly with higher education and with the emphasis 
of it. It was in general their conception that education would percolate 
in intelligence through trained leadership down to the people. At any 
rate, in the lack of demand from the masses justifying taxation and 
legislative appropriations to the common schools they found encourag- 
ment for the aristocratic policy of trying to build from the top down- 
ward. The historian will explain this without difficulty. It will be 
remembered that Virginia had long been reckoned as the State of edu- 
cational eminence in the South. Her theory was the aristocratic theory. 
The University of Virginia indicated the ideal of Southern statecraft in 
education. Thomas Jefferson led the way. His monument was seen and 
revered in the University at Charlottesville. No one took the pains to 
notice that theoretically his original program of education provided 
for a structure based upon an adequate system of common schools. It 
was only evident that he had consumed his practical passion on the 
University. The University of North Carolina followed the Virginia 
model. The effect of it through the years fixed the status of the common 
schools as of subordinate importance. The University at Chapel Hill, 
chartered in 1789, existed in glory and wide prestige for fifty years 
before there was any movement to establish a public elementary school 
in North Carolina. The law of 1839 providing for the first elementary 
public school was timorous, tentative and without great purpose to 
overcome the backwardness of public opinion. From 1839 to 1860, 
there appeared one man only with a passion for popular education. 
Calvin H. Wiley did his heroic stint of pleading with enough discourage- 
ment to break his heart. It drove him at last back to the quiet of a 
Presbyterian pastorate. The public school system from his day on, 


State Lirerary anp Histrortcat Association oe 


existed and carried on meagerly under depression and with no influential 
championship. It was not popular with the educators, nor with the 
people. Its maintenance was openly questioned in college centers. In 
1880 the students at the University debated the question: “Ought the 
Public School System of North Carolina to be Abolished?” Interest- 
ing enough, as his biographer indicates, this debate was promoted by 
Charles B. Aycock, of Wayne County, then on the eve of graduation. 
In 1889, the anniversary celebration at Wake Forest College provided 
a similar debate on the question: “Resolved, That the present Public 
School System in North Carolina is worthy of support.” When the 
vote was taken by the large audience, the negative won overwhelmingly. 
Again, curious enough, your speaker this evening represented the 
negative and was warmly congratulated that he had shown conclusively 
that the public school system was not worthy of support. If the repre- 
sentatives of the public school system were asked why something was not 
done to improve and extend the system and make the common schools 
more worthy of respect, they had their answer. The Supreme Court of 
the State up to 1900 had held that free schools were not “a necessary 
purpose” and therefore were confined within the constitutional limita- 
tions of taxes. That doctrine was laid down in Paysour vs. Commis- 
stoners from Gaston County, Judge Merriman dissenting. This meant 
that for the common schools only a bone was left to pick after the 
66 2-3 cents limit for State and county purposes of administration had 
been reached. What was left could only be applied to common schools. 
It was true, of course, that the constitution of the State carried the 
mandatory clause—“a four months’ public school shall be maintained in 
every district.” But the Supreme Court was not greatly impressed by 
that and did not regard the common schools as constituting “a neces- 
sary purpose.” Thus the State of North Carolina stood in 1890. No 
one seemed greatly troubled by it. Secondary education by the State 
was of course impossible, except in a few cities. In the incorporated 
towns under municipal taxation there were only eight graded schools 
with high school instruction, and only two of them attempted as much 
as the tenth grade. In the country districts the elementary public 
schools, lately defined by the Public School Commission of North Caro- 
lina as “the basic institution of democracy,” averaged sixty days a year 
in disreputable and despised one-room houses. Only half of the children 
of school age pretended to attend them at all. The little dole of money 
available in a district was the perquisite of inefficiency and often im- 
patiently absorbed as an inconvenience by private schools to get the 
public school out of the way. 


38 TweENTy-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


WHEN THE Tipr Brcan TO Turn 


Take your stand there in 1890 and tell me what outlook is there for 
popular education in North Carolina? Is there anything on the hori- 
zon of hope to justify the faint prophesy of what would actually occur 
in twenty years? Apparently nothing. The tide is set stubbornly in 
difficulty, indifference and prejudice. North Carolina was on the eve 
of a transformation with noboby expecting it. Within five years a cur- 
rent will be stirred in an unexpected quarter—an agitation will sud- 
denly spring up which will become positive and powerful in appeal 
for the common schools. That agitation, controversial, factional, and 
seemingly reactionary at outset, will challenge public interest in the 
common schools and will begin to turn the thoughts of public men and 
the feelings of the people from apathy to a fighting resolution. How- 
ever men may differ in their estimate of the worthiness or the unworthi- 
ness of the initial impulse of the propaganda of the Baptists and Meth- 
odists of those days, there are two features of it no one will dispute. 
It was impressive in volume, characterized by great earnestness, and 
commanded public response. The other feature was this: The agitation 
after 1895 concentered immediately in demands for adequate practical 
attention to the common schools. This is the story I have come to tell 
you. 

In 1893 a change of administration at the University of North Caro- 
lina brought to that institution an assertive and aggressive leadership. 
This leadership went out after students and increased appropriations. 
Expressions emanated therefrom concerning the denominational colleges 
which were sharply resented. The old but suppressed antagonism be- 
tween the State college and the denominational college flamed out. The 
county scholarship system, increasing appropriations from the legisla- 
ture, and the alleged use of the State’s money in loans to individual stu- 
dents created a situation of acute resentment. The first gun of the 
battle was fired by Dr. Charles E. Taylor, of Wake Forest College, in a 
pamphlet on “How Far Should a State Undertake to Educate?” In 
calm argumentative style this widely distributed pamphlet confirmed 
the State’s right and duty to furnish primary education free to all, but 
disputed the State’s function of free higher education. The response 
of protest was first heard in resolutions passed by the Roanoke Union 
of the Tar River Association in the summer of 1893. The Baptist Asso- 
ciations followed in the same line of discussion. The controversy gained 
headway, and at the Baptist State Convention in Elizabeth City, Decem- 
ber, 1893, a resolution by Dr. J. D. Huffham was adopted which pro- 
vided for a committee of five to seek concert of action by all the denomi- 


Strate Lirrrary anp Histortcan AssocraTIon 39 


national colleges, to memorialize the legislature, and to “secure if pos- 
sible such arrangements as will enable the schools founded and con- 
trolled by citizens to do their work without unnecessary competition 
with the State schools.” In 1894 the agitation was pressed further to 
the front by Dr. C. Durham, the field marshal of the Baptists. At 
the associations of that year and on through the next year to the day 
of his death in October, 1895, Dr. Durham concentrated all the passion 
and ability of his great personality in speeches which drew and held 
multitudes everywhere to sympathetic attention. The emphasis of, his 
campaign turned more and more from the invidious note of protest 
against the University to the generous and patriotic appeal to North 
Carolinians to do their duty by the children of the State. Concurrently, 
in 1895, the first newspaper ‘in the State to place the deplorable condi- 
tions of popular education before the public was the Biblical Recorder, 
then edited by Mr. J. W. Bailey. He opened up a consistent, reason- 
able, and increasing propaganda, showing week after week, in detail 
of facts and figures and arguments, what the low estate of the public 
school system portended for North Carolina civilization. In 1896 Dr. 
Durham’s successor and Dr. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College joined 
with the editor of the Recorder with all their might, and the definite 
campaign for the common schools began to have a program with its 
objective in direct action for their relief. Already the new Superin- 
tendent of Education, Mr. Charles H. Mebane, elected by the Populist 
upheaval, had placed himself in codperative relations with the Baptist 
and Methodist movement. The political conditions at that time favored 
the consolidation of influences for the change of State policies in edu- 
cation. The Populist influence woke up the Democratic masses to the 
sense of their powers of self-assertion. When that movement was over 
in 1898, the channels of popular sensation had been permanently 
widened and deepened in North Carolina. The Baptist Associations, 
and in a large degree the district Methodist Conferences, in that situa- 
tion became public forums of the people, not for political discussion 
but for educational arousement. They passed unanimous resolutions, 
phrased in positive terms of demand, for a change of emphasis in edu- 
cation and for practical proposals to extend and improve the common 
schools. Three years, 1896-1898, it went on in that fashion until every 
section of the State had been affected and the people lined up so far as 
Baptists and Methodists could be properly organized for such a cause. 
There were two points vividly urged in behalf of popular education. 
First: A change of policy, which meant a change of thinking on the 
part of leaders, from the aristocratic theory to the democratic theory 
of the public school system. It was argued after this style: “Let us 


40 Twenty-sreconp ANNUAL SESSION 


stop stacking our educational fodder from the top downward and do it 
according to common sense and experience, by laying the foundations 
first and then build thereon.” It was envisioned that the public school 
system had no logical appeal for confidence until this was done, and 
that when it was done every educational interest of the State would 
flourish, no matter how the winds blew and the floods came, because 
it would be founded upon a rock. The proposition of course required 
direct appropriations from the Legislature to the common schools before 
any appropriations to higher education should be increased. The plea 
was for the established priority of the elementary schools in claims on 
educational statecraft. 

Second: A change of heart on the part of the people who were im- 
mediately concerned. The condition of their schools was portrayed in 
heavy lines. Their inefficiency, brevity, and poverty of equipment were 
held up in rags and tatters. There was little note of controversy in 
these appeals—it was patriotic and pathetic. The spirit of codperation 
with any hand stretched out for the healing of the open sore of North 
Carolina life was not only possible but desirable so far as the leaders 
of the campaign were concerned. In 1897 Dr. Charles D. McIver, who 
was outside the breastworks of the Baptist and Methodist agitation, 
and Mr. J. W. Bailey, who was distinctly a leader on the inside of it, 
were associated together respectively as chairman and secretary of a 
movement to promote a special-tax campaign. Alas for that, it was a 
dismal disappointment. Out of 938 districts, only seven voted the 
special tax. After that essay it was more evident than ever that the 
tide would not turn until a positive beginning had been made in the 
form of a pronounced policy of the General Assembly. In 1898 this 
was the battle-cry. The General Assembly must show the people that 
the State’s policy was going in for the relief of the common schools 
and the precedence of their claims in all educational legislation. The 
Constitution was invoked as a challenge to the candidates for the Legis- 
lature since they were to swear to support and sustain it. They were 
questioned on the stump: “Will you put the common schools first in 
appropriation for education? Will you favor legislation to carry out 
as fast and far as possible the mandatory cause of the Constitution?” 
The election occurred in August, 1898. It soon became known that the 
return of the Democratic party to power would bring to Raleigh a 
General Assembly constituted largely of Baptists and Methodists with- 
out any significance of sectarianism, but with the great significance of 
fact that the Legislature was overwhelmingly strong for putting the 
common schools on a forward-moving program of legislation. The 
group of men who had led the agitation caused a bill to be drawn 


State Lirerary anp Histortcant AssocraTion 41 


appropriating out of the public treasury $100,000 for the common 
schools. Mr. Charles H. Mebane’s was the hand that drew that bill. 
It was typewritten in copy in the office of the Mission Board of the 
Baptist State Convention and placed in the hands of its champions in 
the Senate and the House: Mr. Stephen McIntyre, of Robeson, and 
John B. Holman, of Iredell. It went through triumphantly, though 
not without opposition, both from the inside and from the outside of 
the Legislature. Historically this action marked the sharp, initial, 
practical beginning of that turn in the tide for popular education which 
in the next fifteen years would flood the State with enthusiasm for the 
present public school system in North Carolina. 

In the nature of reminiscence of the good fighting of that year, I 
venture to recall that the Democratic State Executive Committee had 
realized that the campaign of the Biblical Recorder and others had 
won out. From that committee assurance was voluntarily proffered 
that no bills carrying appropriations for higher education would be 
permitted to pass the Legislature without the consent of those who were 
leading the fight in the State for the primacy of the common schools. 
The pledge of the Democratic leaders came to test before the joint com- 
mittee on appropriations in the Legislature at its first meeting, and 
the State Executive Committee made good its unasked-for pledge abso- 
lutely. The appropriations desired by the University, the State Normal 
College, and the A. and M. College were referred to the generosity of 
Mr. Bailey and Mr. White. I am glad to tell you that they were as 
generous as possible under the circumstances, and that from that inci- 
dent onward a new entente of fellowship and sympathy between the 
State colleges and the denominational colleges began a development 
uninterrupted at this hour. 


Tue Great ConsuMMATION 


With the dawn of 1900, seven years lay behind in which the gospel 
of popular education had been preached from platforms and pulpits 
reaching to every community in North Carolina. Public sentiment in 
the rural districts, aroused and sometimes inflamed, had been confirmed 
in repeated resolutions of public assemblies. The moribund situation 
had given way at the end of 1899 to the sense of something moving in 
a new direction for the public schools. With the dawn of 1900 con- 
ditions justified the leaders of the Democratic party in believing that 
a constitutional amendment carrying the 1908 educational qualifica- 
tional clause for white people could be passed. We know what hap- 
pened in North Carolina in that year. North Carolina in all her his- 
tory has never known anything better than what did happen. Due 


49 TWENTY-sEcoND ANNUAL SESSION 


credit certainly must be given to the constitutional amendment for its 
coercive effect as law upon popular education. But the greatest thing 
that happened was Charles B. Aycock. North Carolina found her 
captain, gave him his own trumpet to blow, and the children’s children 
standard to bear. Alas our captain! our captain! Among all the things 
cherished and preserved by your speaker of a somewhat oratorical life, 
nothing is more cherished than a copy of the Raleigh Morning Post 
of January 1, 1899, which reports in eight columns an address made 
in behalf of popular education before the joint session of the House 
and Senate on the night of December 31, 1898, in which this prophecy 
of a great Captain was pleaded: 


The president of a theological seminary was asked the other day what in 
his opinion was the greatest need of foreign missions. He reflected, and re- 
plied, “A great missionary.” If I were asked what the indispensable necessity 
of popular education in North Carolina is at this hour, I would reflect and 
reply, “A great public man whose heart and brain, time, talents, energy, 
everything, is devoted to the cause of the wool-hatted and barefooted army of 
over 600,000 children whose only hope for instruction is in the public schools.” 
I remarked to a gentleman yesterday that North Carolina offered the greatest 
opportunity for statesmanship in America. What I meant was that the con- 
dition of public education in this State, the deplorable situation with regards 
to our public schools in North Carolina afforded the greatest possible oppor- 
tunity for some able man to be transformed from a politician into a states- 
man. And I believe it with all my heart that the man in the next ten years 
of North Carolina life who has been fashioned by nature and experience for 
public leadership, and who will be beside himself a fool, a crank, a dedicated, 
sanctified agitator for better public schools, whether parties nominate or 
people elect to office, or not, whether he offend or whether he please the news- 
papers, will create a career so persistent in its claims upon the conscience of 
our people, and so write himself into the history of a vital progress, and so 
entwine his life into the lives of thousands born and unborn, that sooner or 
later, when truth gets a hearing, as in God’s good time it always does, that in 
the summing-up of achievement and the distribution of laurels, the sage of 
history will write his name in letters of fadeless luster. 


Too eloquent by half, but a Hebrew prophet would have been very 
well satisfied with what was confirmed of its prophecy in North Caro- 
lina in the career of Charles B. Aycock. 

The Democratic State Convention of April, 1900, that gave him its 
“harvest of hearts” and his nomination for Governor, met in the con- 
sciousness of great and deep emotions. It had its mind on the nomi- 
nation of a man without particular regard for his gubernatorial quali- 
ties as an administrator. It had the sense of a new day which de- 
manded a champion of democracy with especial reference to education. 
Before Aycock was nominated, a platform had been adopted for him 
to stand on. One of its planks was this: 


Strate Lirrrary anp Histrorrcant AssocraTIon 43 


We heartily commend the action of the General Assembly of 1899 for appro- 
priating $100,000 for the benefit of the public schools in the State, and pledge 
ourselves to increase the school fund so as to make at least a four-months 
term in each year in every school district in the State. 


I have pleasure in remembering the phraseology because I stood by 
the typewriter that clicked it off on the little slip of paper which was 
handed in to the Committee on Platform through the Hon. Mike Jus- 
tice, of Rutherford. It is needless to say that Charles B. Aycock ap- 
proved and in his inaugural address quoted it as the keynote pledge of 
the campaign he had made for the amendment. The election of Gov- 
ernor Aycock relieved the Baptist Associations and the Methodist Con- 
ferences instantly of every ounce of necessity to concern themselves in 
resolutions about the common schools in North Carolina. It put an 
end to persistent editorials and passionate speeches on that subject. 
Quite naturally to say, from the day he was elected to this hour there 
has never been a flutter of agitation in that quarter. There is no 
question in anybody’s mind, for history has guaranteed that, as to who 
did the grand deed of individual leadership which swept the tide for 
popular education in North Carolina. The man’s picture hangs in my 
home conspicuously among my household gods—Abraham Lincoln, 
Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson—and I look at his face every day. 
The night before he died in Birmingham I walked up and down with 
him in the shed of the old union depot in Atlanta, and we talked of 
things that were and are and were to be—of the past and the future of 
his career. His was a nature of all generosity. He said in kind refer- 
ence to two men whose names I will not call, “Our educational move- 
ment in North Carolina, beginning with the campaign for the amend- 
ment, found the soil prepared for it.” 

We know the story of 1901 to 1922. Everybody knows it, and every- 
body honors the men of it. We know that J. Y. Joyner became the 
organizing genius and the practical administrator of the great change. 
We know that E. C. Brooks and his colleagues have confirmed and 
greatly continued the advance of the public school system. No one 
will be allowed to forget the consuming zeal of Charles D. McIver and 
others. I have only given you a leaf of unwritten record which the 
historian cannot neglect. The pioneering of effective propaganda for 
the common schools in North Carolina was as I have related it. We 
were the first to break with a shout that had echoes in it into the dreary 
and complacent sea of inertia and stolid prejudice. . The shibboleths of 
that agitation became the principles of this progress which tingles in 
the hearts and dances in the eyes of North Carolinians at home and 
abroad in 1922. 


44 Twenty-seconp AnnvaL Session 


It was read in the newspapers a few months ago that 
Foch, the Generalissimo of the World War, in his Ame 
to the city of Detroit he was wearied to exhaustion, 


Hennipin had sailed into the Detroit River in 1679 and h 
these words in his diary: 


Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced 
the World 


By Mrs. J. R. CHAMBERLAIN 


History is an ordering and condensing of social detail so as to present 
facts as truth. 

Because the study of small communities and the influence going out 
from them is an introduction, and indeed the best of introductions to 
history in its broader sense, and because such study is thoroughly fasci- 
nating by reason of its own intrinsic interest, I have chosen for my 
subject the work of two editors, whose personalities and the ideas they 
advocated are intimately twined into the progress of our county. 

More than a century ago Joseph Gales became editor of the first 
newspaper established at the capital of North Carolina. It was a 
Jeffersonian sheet; it represented popular aspirations, and was the 
channel through which many ideas of those fermenting times were 
brought home to the minds, and influenced the opinions of the citizens 
of old North Carolina. 

Joseph Gales came here in the last months of 1799. He was a re- 
markable man for ability, for adventure, and for wide experience of 
men. The fact that he was self-educated, and was at the same time 
an experienced journalist, made him the more skillful in sowing ideas 
among the plain people of our community; and he must surely have 
furnished the kindly leisures of our great-grandfathers with much 
first-hand matter to discuss. His sympathy with his chosen home, and 
his thorough identification of himself with it, made him a man who 
would be readily liked and often quoted. 

Not many newspapers were published then, but those few were 
thoroughly read. They led public opinion. They were not so often 
as today mere followers of the prevalent beliefs, and intensifiers of the 
prejudices of their readers. Instead of walking but a few steps in 
front of the largest, noisiest crowd, as some so-called “yellow journals” 
have done, they had more originality. They were formative influences, 
even as viewed through the diminishing telescope of the lapse of time. 

Gales had been a poor boy, born in Yorkshire, England, apprenticed 
to a printer; and he set up for himself in due time his own newspaper 
in Sheffield, already a great manufacturing town. He and his paper 
were identified with the best liberal Whig ideals of England, just 
subsequent to the defeat of the British at Yorktown—the time when 
Pitt and the statesmen with him bethought themselves of the reason- 


46 TweEntTy-seconp AnNUAL SxEssIon 


ableness of those demands, which when denied to their colonies had 
brought on the successful war of the Revolution. 

In the England of that time reform, scientific discovery, the growth 
of manufacturing, the increase of dissent, and the rosy dawn of the 
French Revolution were all mixed into a web of rapid changes. Among 
the advocates of the several measures of reform, Gales, by means of 
his influential paper, was the peer of any. He was assisted in his 
editorship by a wife whose antecedents were more cultured than his 
own, but who shared his opinions, and was a woman of the greatest 
talent and spirit. She was one of the early “Blue Stockings.” She 
wrote novels, and although the work of her pioneer efforts at self- 
expression, as well as that of all the rest of her sister authoresses, not 
excepting the great Mrs. Hannah Moore herself, has gone completely 
out of fashion, yet their influence on their age was great. Dr. Samuel 
Johnson said of these ladies: “A woman’s preaching or writing is like 
a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are 
surprised to find it done at all.” So spoke the Great Lexicographer, 
that knock-down joker. 

Gales’s partner in his publishing business in Sheffield was James 
Montgomery, a writer of hymns, which are still to be found in our 
hymn books. “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” is one, and “Hark the 
Song of Jubilee!” another. In the second we can still feel the breath 
of new hope for humanity such as men felt when France convened her 
first “States General.” The hymn might be called a sanctified “Ca 
Tra? 

Gales must have been aware of the first Sunday school in 1781. He 
afterwards became the first Sunday school superintendent in Raleigh, 
when union services for the little city were held in the old State House. 
He was a religious man. He felt a devoted admiration for Dr. Priestley 
of Birmingham. He did not on that account feel afraid to show friend- 
ship to Thomas Paine, that celebrated Deistic Quaker whose opportune 
book, “The Rights of Man,” set American sentiment unitedly in the 
direction of the Revolution, and just in the nick of time. 

Although Paine was later furnished with horns and a tail by the 
popular imagination, after his other work, “The Age of Reason,” was 
printed, in which he insisted that belief in God must go the same way 
as submission to kings; yet he was a writer of power who had great 
influence in his day. Mrs. Gales said of him, when she entertained him 
in her house, that she found him “a gentle, kindly soul.” 

Dr. Priestley, the learned Unitarian divine, who interspersed his 
treatises on theology and early excursions into the “Higher Criticism,” 
the first that we hear of, with books about his own scientific discoveries, 


Strate Lirprary anp Hisrortcat AssociaTIoNn 47 


was also an intimate friend of the Galeses, and both he and his friends 
were caught in the same back-wash of conservative sentiment when the 
French killed their king. 

So terribly did this deed shock Englishmen that the partisans of the 
French Revolution in England, of whom Edmund Burke was one, could 
scarcely disown all ideas connected with it hastily enough; and because 
some convinced liberals, Radicals they were then called, continued to 
demand prison reform and the suppression of “Rotten Boroughs,” they 
were subjected to the persecution of Tory mobs. Dr. Priestley’s labora- 
tory apparatus was thrown into the street in Birmingham, in the same 
way as the types of Joseph Gales’ printing office in Sheffield. Both 
were indicted for treason. Both had to flee to America. 

Joseph Gales remained two years in Schleswig-Holstein, then a part 
of Denmark, there awaiting his wife, and after her coming, failing 
immediate departure, as they planned, because a seaworthy vessel was 
not at once available. 

Mrs. Gales, no clinging vine she, sold out the business successfully 
before she went .to Denmark, and the pair with their family reached 
Philadelphia safely in 1795. 

I would like to stop and turn back here, to tell in detail how bravely 
Mrs. Gales faced her own mob, how she was protected in her home by 
the working men of Sheffield, after her husband’s flight, and how, when 
they had begun their voyage across the ocean, when their vessel was 
taken by pirates, she talked these sea-hawks into letting their prey sail 
on unharmed to America. Arriving there, how she reproved Willie 
Jones for profane swearing, how she wrote the first novel ever printed 
in North Carolina—the first, and for so very long, the only one. 

Also it would be good hunting to describe the time when the Tory 
authorities had to send for Joseph Gales, the printer, to quiet a wild 
Sheffield mob, which he was able to pacify; and to tell how Gales used 
his unexpected delay in Holland to learn two new languages, and the 
then unusual art of shorthand. How also he grew friendly with many 
celebrated Emigrés, and how Madame de Genlis wished to adopt the 
baby Altona Gales, and again, how they saw General Pichegru, of the 
red Revolutionary Army of France, go skating to the conquest of Hol- 
land over the ice of the River Elbe. 

After all these exciting experiences the pair must have been glad to 
reach a quiet haven and a life of less uncertainty, when, in the fall 
of 1799, they came to Raleigh to start the Raleigh Register. 

Among the North Carolina delegation to Congress, still meeting in 
Philadelphia, were Nathaniel Macon and Willie Jones. Both were 
Jeffersonians. Then as now people were divided into two opinions. 


48 Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SxEssIon 


Conservatives who did not fully trust the common man, liberals who 
were willing to try him. At that time, much more than today, party 
lines were strictly drawn between these two camps. Jefferson, who 
was a strong enthusiast for the French ideals of liberty, equality and 
fraternity, gave his name to the rising party representing these senti- 
ments. 

North Carolina had at that time more population than New York 
State. 

President Adams and the Federalists had lately passed the “Alien 
and Sedition Acts,” which were most unpopular. North Carolina was 
a close State politically, and the Jeffersonians saw their opportunity. 
They were glad to discover in Joseph Gales, lately come to Philadel- 
phia, an able man whose political opinions were distinctly Jeffersonian, 
who could worthily edit the paper they wished to start in Raleigh, that 
new little Capital-in-the-woods. 

Gales’ new paper was the old Sheffield one revived. It bore the same 
name, The Register. It was decorated with the same emblem, or head- 
ing, of the liberty pole and cap, and it expressed the same sympathy 
for the under dog. It professed also the same passion for reform as 
when it had been issued in Sheffield. Its editor was from henceforth 
a part of this city. He was its mayor for term after term. He be- 
came State Printer after the Jeffersonians or “Republicans” came into 
power. 

He opened a book shop when he arrived in Raleigh, and among his 
first list of books for sale we find the authors Godwin, Paine, Rousseau 
and Adam Smith. In one of his early editorials occur these words: 
“What is the world but one wide family on which the Common Parent 
looks with the eye of equal protection.” Again, “To choose a good 
cause is to select one which selfish men dislike.” 

His paper became a great disseminator of information on agricul- 
tural subjects; it published careful accounts of the discoveries and 
improvements which came so thickly in the beginning of the century 
past. Mr. Gales was always a friend to every idea which meant prog- 
ress or benefit to those who could not help themselves. Education, 
Temperance, Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Care of the Insane, Internal 
Improvements—in all these questions he was far ahead of his fellow 
citizens. 

He trained three generations of editors. His son and his son-in-law 
were partners in establishing and editing the National Intelligencer, 
the first Washington newspaper, which gave authoritative reports of the 
debates of Congress. Another son and a son’s son were successively 
editors of Raleigh. His descendants are many and worthy today. 


State Lirrrary anp Hisrortcat Assoctation 49 


Such a man’s influence is impossible to estimate, difficult to limit. 
I think we can take for granted for that time, as for this, the dearth 
of constructive reasoning and the lack of educational progressive leader- 
ship, and may be allowed to justify high praise of a man who supplied 
both to his State for many years, and indirectly to his country. 

Some one has said that the axis of the earth sticks out visibly at the 
place which each of us calls home. In connecting the life of Mr. Gales 
with our center, we noted the beginning, how it was rooted in signifi- 
cant times of his native England, while the flowering came with us. 
American history has not hitherto taken enough notice of or given 
enough credit to our “Americans by Choice.” 

The second of these chosen sowers of seed, of whom I am to speak, 
had indeed his day in the great world, and a glorious one; but it was 
here on our own soil, here on our own red clay hills that he had his 
origin. Some day we will better value the distinction which this 
gives us. 

The recently published Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Hen- 
drick, is an admirably planned book, with skillful selection of those 
letters which best show the mind of the man. It has one fault which 
slaps a Wake County, North Carolina, person smartly in the face. Mr. 
Hendrick always thinks of Walter Page as a world figure. He would 
rather have him, as it seems, just happen, like Melchisedec, without 
genealogy or local attachment. He emphasizes this. He takes pains 
to tell us that Mr. Page’s education was almost wholly obtained out- 
side of North Carolina, and ignores the home influence on a young 
man’s life and thought. He stresses the fact that Mr. Page was unap- 
preciated, and therefore had to leave us. 

Now when a man’s forbears have lived for three generations in a 
locality, and when he himself has continuously remained there until his 
later teens, he can never lose the mark of his nativity, even if he wishes 
it very earnestly. Mr. Page never wished anything like that for a 
moment. People who knew him, and who knew his “folks,” will main- 
tain that he is no “bud variation” or “mutation.” He was the “square- 
root of his ancestors.” 

That exquisite precision of his in the use of words, whereby things 
are said finally, and the nerve of a fallacy is punctured so that it can 
never squirm again, is not unknown as a talent in some of his kin. As 
a boy he could marshal his thoughts and tell them in plain, well-selected 
words. That he was well educated was his own doing. It was the 
quality of the man who went to Johns Hopkins, and to Germany, which 
made the education effective. 


4 


50 TweEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


When he came to Raleigh to edit the Chronicle he had become a most 
active principle, fit to stir up a passive society. Some people are born 
with the love of the past in their hearts, and others with the question- 
ing of existing institutions upon their lips. Of the latter was young 
Walter Page. 

Imagine such a man, in the vigor of his independent soil turned 
loose in a land of sore memories. Here at that time it was like the home 
of the old, where all is kept sacred; a place where, after supreme effort 
relaxed, the daily habit was to “sit in the sun and tell old tales.” Being 
the man he was, he felt scant sympathy with all this, as a regnant 
mood. He did not truly estimate the depth of the post-war ennui. He 
did not think seriously enough of the old soldier’s inevitable worship 
-of the past. 

They say that even today, in this America, there are young men who 
cannot get away from the World War, who cannot march breast forward 
into the new day. They turn back mentally, because they feel that their 
greatest significance as individuals is already past. 

(Mr. Page loved North Carolina. He saw her possibilities. He knew 
her latent power. He inspired many of those who have brought about, 
since then, the things that have counted for progress. He shot his 
ideas, like arrows, into the hearts of his circle of young men friends. 
The things he told us, the shrewd comments he injected under our hides 
by his keen criticism, we have never forgotten. Kven till this day we 
are taking the time to prove that he overstated, by doing all those things 
which he evidently feared we might tot do.) 

Prophets have been noted for telling unpleasant truths from the 
earliest times, and every young man who begins reformer is made to 
suffer for it. 

Very soon, because we could not pay him a living for his wares, he 
went to fill a more conspicuous place than that of the small town editor 
of a weekly newspaper. The editorship of several significant periodicals 
culminated for him in the chair of the staid, long-established, oracular 
Atlantic Monthly of Boston. From that he went to become founder of 
The World’s Work, more his own pattern of a monthly. 

When he left North Carolina he took her with him. As often as he 
visited his old home he brought her some solution to her problems. A 
man is—precisely what he does. For the great “State College” which 
calls its thousand young men each year and teaches them to use the 
State’s resources, for the North Carolina Woman’s College which util- 
izes the real value of our girls’ brains, so long a waste product—for the 
first and for the second of these educational achievements I am not 


State Lirrrary anp Hisrortcat Association 51 


going to give him all the credit. Let him portion out the praise who 
can: so much to Page, so much to the Watauga Club, so much to those 
other notable apostles of better education, such as McIver and Aycock. 

Whatever was done then, Page was there, in word and inspiration, 
at the doing of it. But perhaps his greatest service to his own State 
was his interest in the health welfare of our Southern country. 

When Dr. Stiles, of the Education Bureau, gave in Raleigh his first 
semi-public lecture on the discovery of the cause of the malady which 
was killing so many at the South, I sat upon the front bench to hear 
him, the only woman there, eyed as a strange cat in the garret by the 
group of physicians, plus a few cotton mill executives, there assembled. 
The great calming satisfaction, felt when the true reason for a strange 

and baffling phenomenon is laid in one’s hand to keep forever, was my 
abundant reward when I went away. 

We know all about these things now. A cotton mill village, a country 
school, may be as rosy and as healthy as to its children as the best resi- 
dence street. This also by the help of Walter Page. Yes, he has kept 
us on our toes, to show how well we can do, “but and if we would.” We 
should thank him, we should honor him, we should never take it out in 
roasting his one novel, “The Southerner,” because in it he never quite 
guessed the feelings of the old Confederate soldier, first defeated, and 
then “excoriated” by Reconstruction doings! 

All the story of the great World War is not yet written. Page’s 
acting of his own part as Ambassador to Great Britain, which I admire 
exceedingly, is however ready for posterity’s verdict: 

Some recent reviewer has called him the “Modern F ranklin,” inas- 
much as he was the interpreter of things American to the great British 
Empire, when, lacking mutual understanding, we might have gone 
under together along with our common civilization. 

He seems also to have had laid on him the task of expressing Eng- 
land’s inarticulate soul to America, to have combated successfully the 
dogged determination of certain elements not to consider the inevita- 
bility of our joining the Allies. 

International sympathy and international friendship was better than 
too much raw international candor; and here again I shall claim that 
old kinship; that Wake County, North Carolina, folksyness, alive in 
her distinguished son, played a part in saving the world when it rein- 
forced the greater qualities possessed by Walter Hines Page. In North 
Carolina we enjoy people, we like kindly gossip, we discuss and taste 
the differences of personality among our friends with loving discrimina- 
tion, as some more sophisticated societies forget to do. 


52 TwrEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


Mr. Page filled the conceptions of the English as to true democratic 
ways and easy manners. He liked their individuality, and they felt it, 
he became to them a more idealistic Franklin, a truly democratic rep- 
resentative of a great Democracy. He was precisely the man; they 
esteemed him. 

Besides all this, we read in his letters how well his heart remembered 
the things his boyhood knew. 

How clearly we hear this when he chooses to touch that key. How 
he recalled the heart of the struggling woods where he roamed as a boy; 
how he remembered the smells of growing things outdoors under our 
sweltering summer sun; how he saw in his mind’s eye the glorious color 
of a clay bank in the golden light of autumn, and heard the whirr of the 
partridge startling out of the blackberry thicket in early winter. 

Nature he knew and loved as his boyhood had found it. The pine 
trees were always “kind to him.” How dear to him was that “Little 
grove of long-leaved pines” in the country hé called his own! 

Yes, I take issue with his excellent biographer; he was a Southerner. 
He was far more that person than the gentleman in question might 
ever be able to guess. Because of that fact and that nurture he was a 
most important link, I am tempted to say the most important link in 
the final will united to victory of the Alhes. 


Missions of the Moravians in North Carolina Among 
Southern Indian Tribes 


By EpMunpD ScHWARzE, Ph.D. 
Pastor Calvary Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N. C. 


— 


History and fiction of which the American Indian is the subject are 
invested with peculiar fascination and interest. Those who remember 
the high privilege, while at school, of taking out a library book on 
Friday afternoons will, most likely, have a picture in their minds of the 
shelf upon which stood the Leather-Stocking Tales or other Indian 
books. 

Historic haunts of the Indian; scenes of his special activity, good or 
evil; arrow-heads and other Indian relics have about them an unfailing 
glow of romance. Indian names are retained regardless of difficult spell- 
ing and pronunciation. 

The writer has experienced all these thrills but wishes to record that, 
for him, the greatest interest attaching to the Indian has been to observe 
him responding to the Gospel. This is the best part of Indian lore. 

Moravian mission history is particularly rich in this field, for the 
Indians ever lay near to the hearts of the Moravian brethren who were 
constrained by the love of Christ to send companies from their congre- 
gations in the Old World as heralds of the Gospel to the aborigines of 
America. 

The story of this particular mission among southern tribes of the 
United States—only a small part of the manifold labors of the Mora- 
vians with the Indians—properly belongs into the history of Wachovia, 
the Moravian settlement in North Carolina which, in turn, is one of the 
main chapters in the history of our State. 

The essential values of a human life are spiritual. Beneath the 
civilization, progress and prosperity of today lie spiritual fundamentals 
which are in the greatest danger of being overlooked in our materialistic 
age. Christian missions have laid this foundation and failing to main- 
tain it will topple the whole superstructure man has built into ruin. 
Lest we lose our vision in the blinding glare of materialism; lest we pile 
things so high that we cannot see God; stories of the messengers of the 
Cross should continue to be written and read, and, above all, Christians 
need increasingly to react to the Great Commission. 

The Moravian Church which undertook this mission to southern 
Indian tribes was organized in 1457 at the very dawn of Protestantism, 
by spiritually-minded followers of John Hus and embraced 400 parishes 


54 TwrENTY-sEcoND ANNUAL SESSION 


and 200,000 members in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland at the time 
when Martin Luther appeared. Seemingly crushed after the terrific 
convulsions of the Anti-Reformation during the Thirty Years’ War, a 
“Hidden Seed” was preserved by God, and members of the Unitas 
Fratrum found asylum from persecution on the estate of Count Zinzen- 
dorf in Saxony in 1722. Here the Moravian Church was renewed by 
Divine power in 1727. Already in 1732, the first missionaries were sent 
to the blacks on the island of St. Thomas and the following year two 
brethren went to the Eskimos in Greenland. The men who were the 
pioneers in the evangelization of the southern Indians belonged to a 
church which regarded the Master’s unmistakable “go” not as a sugges- 
tion nor an option, but as a command to be obeyed. The Moravian 
Brethren had one passion and only one: to make Christ known to all 
ranks and conditions of men. 

Hence, to hear of the Indians who inhabited the New World was a 
desire created in the hearts of the Moravians to take to them the Gospel. 
Incidentally, this would give their church a home in America, where, 
unfettered and unhindered, the Moravian Brethren could live and 
develop their own life of devotion to God. 

A liberal grant of land was secured in 1734 from the trustees of the 
Georgia colony near the town of Savannah, and early in 1735 a com- 
pany of ten men arrived, each master of a trade, and thus together 
fitted to form a settlement. This was begun close to the town and 
strengthened by the arrival of additional Moravian colonists. With 
characteristic thoroughness, substantial homes were built and fields 
planted. The congregation was fully organized and could now enter — 
upon the undertaking for which it had been sent. 

Objects of the first endeavors were the Creeks, probably so called by 
English traders from the large number of creeks in their country. 

Broadly considered, the Creek Nation was a confederacy of Uchees, 
Chocktaws, Chickasaws, and others, all belonging to the general family 
of Muskhogee. Their tradition points to the country west of the Missis- 
sippi as the primeval seat of this people. There they were mound- 
builders. The same tradition tells of the long and arduous journey inci- 
dent to their emigration from the ancestral home to the location where 
they were discovered by the white men. Opposed by numerous and 
valiant tribes, the Muskhogee had fought their way to present abodes. 

These were located chiefly in the northern Alabama and along the 
upper and middle valley of the Chattahoochie River in Georgia and 
the Creeks thus occupied a central position among the tribes of the Gulf 
States, parts of which tribes they were continually, by conquest, incor- 
porating into their Nation. 


Strate Lirerary anp HisroricaL ASsocrIATION 55 


The Creeks lived in well-constructed log houses, provided with 
wooden, clay-lined chimneys. Villages were permanent and arranged 
in a rectangle around an open space reserved for public gatherings, and 
especially, the annual “green corn dance”’—a religious exercise of 
thanksgiving. 

Each village had its chief and its own insignia. The work in the 
fields was usually done in common under the paternal supervision of the 
chief. Over an entire clan was the “micco” or head chief. 

A curious custom divided the towns into “white” and “red”—marked 
by poles of these colors—which division was of great importance in 
deciding the policy of the Nation when an occasion for war arose: the 
“red” towns presenting the arguments for war; the “white” championing 
peace. 

Characteristics of these Indians were life on a comparatively high 
moral plane; absence of the grosser forms of vice until corrupted by 
intercourse with unscrupulous whites; and eagerness to learn, coupled 
with great ability to master arts and crafts; vague ideas of a Supreme 
Being, and an immortality of the soul on a low, material basis. Con- 
jurers and charms wielded a great influence among them. 

When the English were establishing the Carolina colony the Creeks 
sent envoys to Charleston with offers of friendship and alliance, which 
treaty was made and kept inviolable up to 1773, when the continued 
encroachments on the Indians’ land by white settlers caused repeated 
uprisings. During the Revolutionary War the Creeks were generally 
hostile to the Americans and it was not until 1795 that peace was finally 
concluded. Again in the War of 1812 the Creeks allied themselves with 
the English and perpetrated some fearful massacres before they were 
completely crushed and compelled to sue for peace in which contract 
they were forced to cede about one-half their former territory. Sub- 
missively, they retired to their reservations and ultimately were trans- 
ported west of the Mississippi where they comprised one of the “Five 
Civilized Tribes.” 

The Moravian settlers in Georgia continually came in contact with 
Yamacraw clan of the Creeks whose chief, Tomotschatschi, was the firm 
friend of the whites, and he and his people paid friendly visits to the 
Moravians. They indicated a desire to have some of the Brethren come 
and live among them to teach useful arts and, especially, to tell them 
the “Great Word.” Accordingly, in July, 1737, a Moravian missionary 
and wife went to live among them with intent to learn the language and 
to tell them of their Savior. 

Further development came when General Oglethorpe agreed to pro- 
vide a schoolhouse for Indian children near Tomotschatschi’s village if 


56 TweEntTy-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


the Moravians would build and man the school and preach the Gospel, 
which offer they eagerly accepted. The house was erected on an island 
in the Savannah River a mile above the town and school was begun 
under most favorable auspices: the children readily learning to read 
and write and memorize verses of Scripture; their elders looking on with 
wonder and approval. 

Then, in 1737 and 1738, came rumors of a threatened invasion of 
Georgia by the Spaniards from Florida, and the whole colony was called 
to arms. In vain the Moravian Brethren insisted on their previous 
agreement with the trustees, not to be required to bear arms: the ulti- 
mate verdict was that if they would not remain in Georgia as citizens 
they might not remain as missionaries. Thus, unexpectedly, the open 
door was shut. The Moravians were glad, in 1740, to accept the offer 
of George Whitefield to sail with him to Pennsylvania where possibili- 
ties for a Moravian settlement and missionary labors were developing. 
Within a few years they became firmly established around their northern 
center, Bethlehem, Pa., and inaugurated widespread and flourishing mis- 
sions among northern Indian tribes. 

A new sphere came for work in the South when leaders of the 
Moravian Church in England in 1749 began negotiations with Lord 
Granville for the purchase of a large tract of land in North Carolina. 
One hundred thousand acres were purchased and selected in the Pied- 
mont section of our State for a settlement of the Brethren. The tract 
was named “Wachovia.” As in Georgia, the two objects for the begin- 
ning in North Carolina were: holiness of life and separation for mis- 
sion service. 

A company of twelve men left Bethlehem, Pa., October 8, 1753, and 
journeyed through the trackless forests to Wachovia where they arrived 
on November 17 and their first settlement, Bethabara, was begun in a 
beautiful location five miles northwest of Winston-Salem. Salem, the 
principal and central town was begun in 1766 and became, in 1771, the 
seat of a district Moravian center around which has developed the 
Southern Province of the Moravian Church in America. 

Attracted by kindness and hospitality, parties of Creek and Cherokee 
Indians soon made beaten paths to Bethabara which they called “the 
Dutch fort where there are good people and much bread.” 

Nearness to the southern Indians, so desirable for the purposes of a 
mission, was very dangerous during the years 1759-1761, as the Creeks 


and Cherokees were embroiled in the French and Indian War. Beth- . 


abara was stockaded and many refugees were accommodated. The mill 
supplied the surrounding country with flour during this perilous period. 
The Indians planned several times to attack the village. On one oc- 


Strate Lirerary anp Histortcat AssocraTion 57 


easion, the ringing of the church bell struck fear into their hearts and 
they hastily withdrew, for they imagined their plans had been dis- 
covered. Another assault was averted when the advancing savages were 
startled by the blast of the horn of the watchman who was merely an- 
nouncing the hour. 

When peace had come, the Brethren turned their attention, once more, 
to Indian missions. Several evangelistic tours were made into Creek 
and Cherokee settlements. Letters were sent to the Commandant at 
Fort Prince George, Cherokee country, to ascertain possibilities for a 
permanent mission. A courteous and favorable reply gave assurance 
that the Cherokees would welcome missionaries. A Cherokee chief who 
passed through Salem in 1775 expressed the same opinion. 

Preparations to send missionaries were at once made but were broken 
off by the Revolutionary War and it is to be ascribed to God’s merciful 
Providence alone that the Moravian towns were not destroyed. 

Peace having been concluded and the Indian tribes having become 
wards of the United States Government, the Moravians resolved upon 
an official inspection of the Cherokee country along the Tennessee River. 
This was done in 1784. By the kindness of the United States agent a 
Council was arranged in the vicinity of Knoxville and twenty chicfs 
assembled. Through an interpreter the Cherokees were asked whether 
they wished to be instructed about their God and Creator and whether, 
for this purpose, a few of the good Moravian men could live among 
them. The head chief, Tayhill, asked time for deliberation. After two 
hours, he rose and said he was glad for the men who wished to come to 
tell them about God, “the Great Man who lives above,” but he could give 
no definite answer until the other chiefs returned from the hunt. At 
the annual Council on Long Island in the Holston River they would 
render definite decision. 

Before the expiration of the year new disputes arose involving the 
Cherokees in war with the neighboring states. To avoid further 
trouble, white people were forbidden to settle among the Indians except 
upon special license from the Government. For a period of fifteen 
years Moravian connection with the Cherokees was broken off. 

In 1799, a missionary sent by the “New York Missionary Society” 
to the Chickasaws embodied in his report this clause which had, as some 
of them said, “the effect of an electric spark” on the Salem Moravians: 
“The Cherokees who reside in the vicinity of Tennessee are desirous of 
having missionaries among them.” 

The Executive Board in Salem at once deputed two Besthean on a 
reconnoitering journey. They reached Knoxville November 6, 1799, 
and proceeded to the Government Indian Agency at Tellico Blockhouse 


58 TweEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


where they were cordially received but learned they had come too late 
for that year. Three weeks before there had been 4,000 Cherokees at 
Tellico to receive their annual presents from the Government. Now 
all were on the hunt and would not return until the end of winter. The 
envoys from Salem set down the purpose for their coming in writing for 
the Commandant at Tellico who promised his good offices to secure the 
consent of the Chiefs. The paper ended with this sentence: “The hap- 
piness of the poor Indian is a weighty matter to our Society and the 
establishment of a mission among them is seriously thought of.” 

Captain Buttler delivered a lengthy “Talk,” on the basis of this paper, 
to Chiefs “Little Turkey” and “Bloody Fellow” on May 9, 1800, urging 
them to accept the offers of the Moravians. His talk was well received 
by them and they promised to lay this business before the Council. 

The same deputies were sent from Salem September, 1800, to treat 
with the Cherokees when they would gather for the annuity. They ar- 
rived in good time, and after the business of the Government was com- 
pleted, a full Council of the chiefs was convened, before which the mis- 
sionaries made their plea in person. Long parleys ensued. The chiefs 
stressed mainly their desire to have the children educated, and insisted, 
also, that the missionaries feed and clothe them. They adroitly avoided 
any reference to the preaching of the Gospel. The Council met on suc- 
cessive days and sometimes it seemed as if the efforts of the Moravians 
to gain entrance to the Cherokees would be futile. At last “Doublehead” 
answered for “Little Turkey” as follows: 


Respecting those missionaries, it has been nearly twelve months since they 
paid us the first visit. Now I address myself to the chiefs of my nation. I 
hope it will be well understood. The desire of these gentlemen appears to be 
good, to instruct us and our children. These gentlemen, I hope, will make the 
experiment; we will be the judge from their conduct and their attention to us 
and our children. Should they not comply as now stated, the agent will be 
the judge for the red people. ; 


The Cherokees having given permission, application was made to 
President Adams for license to proceed, which was granted with wide 
liberties and issued by the Secretary of War. Thus, after years of 
blocked efforts and waiting, after strenuous and fatiguing journeys 
beset with difficulties and sickness, after long consultations with chiefs 
and Government officials, the way was now open for the Moravian 
Church in Salem to send missionaries to live among the Cherokees. 

The name applied to this tribe has no meaning in their own language. 
They called themselves by the name “Ani-yun-wiya,” which means 
“real people.” 


Strate Lirerary anp Histrortcar AssocraTIon 59 


Cherokees have been described as the “mountaineers of aboriginal 
America,” and it is quite reasonable to believe that they were the 
original inhabitants of the southeastern portion of the United States. 
They could not tell, when first found by the white man, whether they 
possessed their land by right of discovery or by conquest. 

Linguistically, the Cherokees belong to the Iroquoian stock, though 
grammatical differences indicate that the separation must have occurred 
at a very early time. 

In physical appearance the Cherokees were a splendid race, tall and 
athletic. The women differed from those of other tribes, being tall, 
erect and of a willowy, delicate frame with features of perfect sym- 
metry. Cherokees enjoyed greater longevity than any of the Indian 
nations: it was pure, mountain air they breathed and clear mountain 
streams from which they drank. 

They lived in permanent villages of substantially-built log cabins 
and depended for livelihood chiefly upon agriculture, raising large crops 
of corn, beans, and pumpkins. 

Cherokee women, far from being plodding squaws and slaves of their 
husbands, ruled the house; their power resting chiefly upon three ancient 
customs : 


1. Marriage could be dissolved when one of the parties so wished; 

2. Man and wife did not hold property in common; 

3. Children belonged to the mother and her clan, hence, if man and 
wife disagreed, his own children and his wife’s clan were against him. 


There was considerable intermarriage of white men among the Chero- 
kees at an early date. They were traders of the ante-Revolutionary 
period or Americans from the back settlements. 

Cherokees believed in an Almighty Being who created all things; 
among others, he built the first Indian of red clay. They believed in a 
life after death, either blissful or baleful, as the result of the life lived 
on earth. Both good and evil spirits were recognized, and were able 
to live in man. Sacrifices were made and religious festivals observed 
in charge of sorcerers who had the Cherokees very much in their power. 
The Cherokees had well-defined traditions of the Deluge. Whether these 
date back only to teachers of the days of the Spanish invasion at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century or to remote antiquity, forever hidden 
with other mysteries about the origin of these children of the forest, is 
a matter of conjecture. 

The first political convention between the Cherokees and the English 
was held in 1730. Sir Alexander Cumings was agent of King George 
IT, and on the appointed day the Cherokees seated Sir Alexander on a 


60 Twernty-seconp AnnuaL SxEssion 


stump, well covered with furs, and stroked him with thirteen eagles’ 
tails and sang around him from morning to night, and then, on bended 
knee, declared themselves to be dutiful subjects of the King. 

This comity was interrupted during the French and Indian War, but 
peace was restored in 1761, and, in the following year, a British leu- 
tenant, Henry Timberlake, visited Cherokee towns and persuaded three 
powerful chieftains to accompany him to England. They were pre- 
sented to King George III, and at court exhibited a dignity and bearing 
in keeping with their rank as representatives of a great Nation. 

During the Revolutionary War the Cherokees were powerful allies of 
the British until they were utterly defeated. They entered into formal 
treaty with the United States in 1781. 

To this interesting Nation the Moravian Brethren felt constrained 
to come as messengers of Christ, and this mission and those of other 
denominations which followed the Moravian pioneers are inseparably 
connected with and chiefly responsible for the rapid and remarkable 
rise of the Cherokees in enlightenment, civilization and prosperity. 
Their espousal of Christianity brought them out as the most highly- 
developed of all Indian nations. 

A kind of first-fruits of the Cherokee harvest was a Cherokee who had 
been taken prisoner in one of the many Delaware-Cherokee wars and 
brought into the vicinity of the Moravian mission among the Delawares 
in the Tuscarawas Valley, Ohio. Noah had remained in this neighbor- 
hood after his release, became a convert and was baptized by Moravian 
missionaries on July 4, 1773, twenty-eight years before the Southern 
mission was undertaken. 

The Salem deputies, after securing the official permission of the Coun- 
cil, examined several tentative sites for the location of a mission, of 
which Conference chose a plantation of 60 acres two miles east of the 
Connesauga River and 80 miles south of Tellico. This tract was pur- 
chased and named “Springplace” because of several fine limestone 
springs thereon. Springplace was 400 miles distant from Salem by way 
of Knoxville, and the site of the present Springplace is Murray County, 
Georgia. 

On the night of April 12, 1801, an inspiring service was held in the 
Salem Church at which the first missionaries to the Cherokees, Abraham 
Steiner and Gottlieb Byhan, were solemnly set apart for this office. “And 
when they had prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them 
away.” 

On horseback, and with one packhorse, the two set out next morning 
“to prepare for the settlement of a mission by planting some ground 
with provision and providing an habitation.” They reached Spring- 


Strate Lirerary anp Historica AssociaTIONn 61 


place April 20, and for several weeks remained on the neighboring 
plantation of a half-breed until the occupant at Springplace had re- 
moved. 

Services were begun at once, held in a building on James Vann’s 
farm and were attended by half-breed Cherokees, and white and colored 
persons. ; 

The missionaries were busily occupied planting their fields and fell- 
ing trees for their own dwelling. Three months after leaving Salem 
they could occupy their new cabin and at night, when they had lit 
their pine torches, they dedicated the place and themselves to the Lord. 

For the first months the Brethren lived on corn bread, eggs, and 
coffee. Once, several Indians came to remain over night, and they 
shared with them what their larder afforded and it was only bread and 
water. They fared better when the garden yielded an abundance of 
vegetables. 

Steiner was privileged to attend a Council at which a treaty between 
the United States and the Cherokees was to be concluded. Three 
hundred warriors had gathered for the proceedings. “Little Turkey,” 
the head chief, did not come, and for this reason: the President of the 
United States did not come in person but sent deputies; therefore, 
“Little Turkey,” principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, did not come 
in person but sent deputies! The commissioners laid before the chiefs 
the main business, namely, complaints of the neighboring states about 
the Indian trails, too narrow for trade and intercourse. The Govern- 
ment wished to make them wider. Chief “Doublehead,” after all had 
smoked in silence for a season, arose and flatly declined the road proposi- 
tion, saying, that evidently the narrow trails were wide enough for the 
white man to find the red man’s land. Whereupon the meeting ad- 
journed sine die. 

A glimpse now of one of the many arduous journeys from Salem to 
Springplace. One of the missionaries was married in Salem, and with 
another missionary, the trip to Springplace was undertaken in a large, 
covered wagon. Friends from Salem accompanied them as far as 
Bethania, where a farewell service was held and the missionaries pushed 
on. They crossed the Little Yadkin, came over the Blue Ridge and the 
New River; next, the south and middle forks of the Holston River were 
negotiated and the party came to Knoxville and then to Tellico Block- 
house. Here the road for vehicles ended and the wagon was turned for 
home, the missionaries hiring a packhorse and an Indian guide for the 
rest of the journey. Spending the nights under the open sky they were 
drenched by heavy rains. Coming to the Hiwassee River they found 
that stream swollen. The guide put the lady across in a canoe and the 


62 TweEnty-seconp AnnuUAL SEssion 


one missionary managed to get over on his horse, but when the other 
man attempted to follow on the packhorse, the girth tore and it was 
only after a desperate struggle that man and horse came to land. Com- 
ing, finally, to their station after these trials, they found that most of 
their household effects had been stolen and the place generally was in 
bad condition. Yet the diary records a praise service held that very 
night as it was held every night during the many years of the Spring- 
place mission. 

For the first years the outlook was dark and discouraging. The mis- 
sionaries could not talk to the Indians except there chanced to be an 
interpreter. Moreover, the difficulties in the way of learning the lan- 
guage seemed insuperable. The chiefs were becoming suspicious because 
the promise of a school had not yet been carried out. Imagine the con- 
sternation of the missionaries when an ultimatum was sent them either 
to start the school without delay or to vacate Cherokee land by Jan- 
uary first, 1804. Due to the intervention of the United States agent the 
threat was not carried out and the chiefs were prevailed upon to grant 
longer time. By Christmas, 1804, four scholars were at Springplace, 
two of them the sons of chiefs who had been most bitterly opposed to 
the mission. 

Two new log houses were now erected at Springplace for dwelling 
and school purposes. 

The year 1804 marked the beginning of a new effort among the 
Creeks. Col. Hawkins, the Government agent among them had spent 
much time in turning the Creeks from hunting, fishing, ete., to the 
simple manufactures, knowledge of weights and measures and the 
like, and he had been very successful. Consequently, when two Brethren 
came from Salem to the Creek country, they were cordially received by 
Col. Hawkins, who promised to do all in his power to assist a mission 
among his wards. 

The Hawkins establishment was on the Flint River and being on the 
border of the Creek country missionaries could live here without obtain- 
ing permission from the Creeks. 

The Brethren were advised to send missionaries who were artisans— 
carpenters, smiths, ete.— for the Creeks were very anxious to learn 
trades and therefore a missionary so trained could find easier entrance 
with the Gospel. 

In 1807 two men were ready, between them representing the black- 
smith, joiner and turner, gunsmith, and weaver trades. Among the 
Creeks their services were greatly in demand and they faithfully 
preached Christ where opportunity offered. Long evangelistic tours 
were made, for the situation at the agency did not reach many Indians. 


Sratrr LireRARY AND HistoricaLt AssocIATION 63 


Six years passed and the missionaries saw hopeful signs that their 
labor was not in vain. Then came the War of 1812, and the Creeks 
went on the war-path, rendering the position of the two Brethren on 
the Creek border extremely dangerous and finally untenable. They were 
recalled in 1813. 

Meanwhile the light was dawning in the Cherokee Nation, its first 
beams arising, singularly enough, out of the school which the mission- 
aries so much dreaded. With the coming of John Gambold and wife 
to the work came a new era for the Cherokees. In gifts and conse- 
cration, Gambold was eminently the man for the place and Mrs. Gam- 
bold was even more valuable. For twenty years she had been principal 
tutoress in the school for young ladies at Bethlehem, Pa., and her talents 
of the highest order and lovely disposition had endeared her to students 
all over the country. These two gave the balance of their lives to the 
Cherokees, both filling a grave in the Indian country after many years 
of highly successful service. Under the blessing of God the mission 
blossomed like a rose in the desert of heathenism. When at Christmas 
1806, the Cherokee scholars sang: 


“Praise the Lord, for on us shineth 
Christ, the sun of righteousness,” etc. 


the missionaries felt amply repaid for all trials they had endured in 
the dark years that lay behind. 

The work in the school was so satisfactory that Col. Meigs, the 
Cherokee agent, had no difficulty in securing an annual appropriation 
of $100 from the Government. More scholars were received and the 
curriculum was widened. Carefully the children were instructed, also, 
in the essentials of the Christian faith and this was beginning to tell on 
them and was influencing their parents. 

On June 16, 1810, came the request of Margaret Vann, half-breed 
Cherokee, for baptism—the first fruits of this mission. She was bap- 
tized on August 13 in the large Springplace barn, set in order for the 
occasion, which was completely filled with reverent Cherokees. For 
many years, up to her death, Margaret remained a shining light in her 
nation. One man particularly moved at her baptism was Charles 
Hicks, scribe for the upper Cherokees and later principal chief of the 
nation. Baptized in 1813 he became, also, a principal man of God 
for his people. 

Yes, the tide was turning. A few years ago there was stolid indiffer- 
ence; even hostility. Now, by a miracle of grace, a gracious influence 
from above, all hearts seemed open and the missionaries held the esteem 
of the whole nation. 


64 Twernty-sEconp ANNUAL SESSION 


The school felt the new impulse. Writing in acknowledgment of the 
annual appropriation to the Secretary of War, Gambold says: 


Since last I wrote you, our scholars have advanced in arithmetic as far as 
the rule of three (Theory of Proportion—H. S.) ; made further progress in 
reading, grammar, and writing; learned by heart a little of sacred history, 
and likewise the first rudiments of geography. They are willing children, 
whom we love sincerely, and would gladly sacrifice our days in their service. 


A striking testimony to the character of the work done at Spring- 
place is given in the words of a Catholic Abbé, on a tour of the United 
States, who abode at Springplace for a day and night: 


Judge of my surprise, in the midst of the wilderness, to find a botanic gar- 
den containing many exotic and medicinal plants; the professor, Mrs. Gambold, 
describing them by their Linnean names. Your missionaries have taught me 
more of the nature of the manner of promulgating civilization and religion in 
the early ages by the missionaries from Rome than all the ponderous volumes 
which I have read on the subject. I there saw the sons of a Cherokee Regulus 
learning their lesson and reading their New Testament in the morning, and 
drawing and painting in the afternoon, though, to be sure, in a very Cherokee 
style, and assisting Mrs. Gambold in her household work or Mr, Gambold in 
planting corn. 


So successful was the school that in 1818 five of the scholars could 
be sent for higher education to a seminary in Cornwall, Conn., con- 
ducted by the A. B. C. F. M.* for the heathen youth of all races. The 
day of their departure was a high day. Mr. Gambold gave the boys 
$10.00 out of his own meagre pocket; fitted two boys with his own 
shirts, and another with vest and trousers. A gentleman going North 
had the boys in charge, and they enjoyed quite a triumphal procession 
and were shown marked kindness everywhere and especially in Salem. 
At Washington, all visited ex-President Jefferson, dined with ex-Presi- 
dent Madison and were introduced to President Monroe. 

Arrived at the school, the five gave evidence of such excellent train- 
ing that the Prudential Committee promptly voted $200 for the Spring- 
place school. One of the boys was adopted by Dr. Elias Boudinot, 
philanthropist, statesman, and author. All of them eventually filled 
careers of great usefulness; two as native helpers in the Gospel among 
their countrymen. 

Encouragement came to Springplace from another source. The same 
chiefs who, a few years ago, had signed the letter threatening eviction 
of the missionaries now sent another letter telling them to enlarge their 
fields at pleasure and that they dwelt in perfect safety in the land. 


* American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Congregational. 


State Literary anp Histortcat AssocraTIon 65 


The influence of Chief Charles Hicks was having a telling effect on 
his countrymen. From forty, fifty, and sixty miles around they came 
to the meetings. This good work continued until, in the 1819, there 
was a signal outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the whole Cherokee tribe. 
Many came to the missionaries with the Philippian jailer’s question, 
“What must I do to be saved?” and men, women and children were 
added to the Lord. 

Wrote Col. Meigs, U. S. agent: “You have succeeded as far as you 
and your Society could possibly expect. The persons you name as new 
members of your church are amongst the first characters in the Nation 
for understanding and respectability.” 

A large and commodious church was erected at Springplace in 1819. 

Of missionary establishments among the Cherokees there were, in 
1819, four, of which the Moravian at Springplace was oldest, estab- 
lished in 1801; Congregational, at Brainerd, Tenn., established 1816; 
Presbyterian, at Tallony, 30 miles east of Springplace, begun 1819; 
Baptist, in the valleys of southern North Carolina, organized 1819. 

The Moravians opened a second station, 1820, at Oochgelogy, 30 miles 
south of Springplace, in what is now Gordon County, Georgia. A mis- 
sionary couple came to this station where a large two-story house was 
erected with second floor arranged for church and school purposes. 
School was begun and gradually a congregation was gathered, and this 
station, too, grew in numbers and influence under the smile of God. 

October, 1820, and February, 1821, brought an experience of quite 
another sort to the little congregation at Springplace. Margaret Vann, 
first convert, consistent Christian, accurate interpreter and real evange- 
list, lay dying. After bidding her beloved missionaries an affectionate 
“Good Night,” after the manner of the early Christians, she “fell on 
sleep,” and the first of the Cherokee flock that was found of Christ was 
the first, likewise, to see Him “face to face.” A dark cloud often is fol- 
lowed by another. Margaret’s spiritual mother, Mrs. Anna Gambold, 
the light and life of the Cherokee mission, kept alive for the past year 
only by her indomitable will and the love for the Cherokees, to whom 
she had poured the past sixteen years of her rich life, was called to her 
eternal reward the following spring and was tenderly bedded beside her 
Cherokee sister in the little Springplace graveyard, amid the sobs of her 
little Indian boy scholars who would not be consoled. 

The wonderful spiritual awakening among the tribe has been noted. 
Just at this psychological time “Sik-wa-yi,” a remarkable Cherokee who 
never learned to read, write or speak the English language, came for- 
ward with a stone upon which he had scratched a Cherokee alphabet of 
86 characters, each representing a syllable. Visiting in a neighboring 


5 


66 TweEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


village, he had observed that white men had a method of conveying their 
thoughts on paper and conceived the idea of inventing characters intel- 
ligible to his people. He submitted his alphabet to a public test of the 
chiefs who placed Sikwayi and his son at some distance from each other, 
dictated sentences to them, and, having exchanged them by trusty mes- 
sengers, had each read the writing of the other. 

Within five years of the acceptance of Sikwayi’s invention three 
presses in the Cherokee forests had turned off 800,000 pages of good 
literature. The whole Nation became an academy for learning the 
alphabet and reading good books. Everywhere one could see Cherokees 
instructing one another in the art of reading and writing. Portions of 
the Scriptures appeared and, at length, the whole Bible in Cherokee was 
ready, the scholarly work of Dr. S. A. Worcester, Presbyterian mis- 
sionary among the Cherokees. The Moravian liturgy and hymns were 
printed. (Copies of these Cherokee editions are preserved in the Salem 
archives.) Appeared a national paper, also, The Cherokee Phoenix, 
edited by one of the five former Moravian scholars whom we have fol- 
lowed from Springplace to the Cornwall Seminary. In fine, the Chero- 
kees became a literary Nation and advanced in civilization and in the 
Christian religion by leaps and bounds. 

Into this glorious sunshine of material, mental and spiritual progress 
came the ominous shadows of gathering clouds followed by the storm 
of the expatriation of the Cherokee Nation. 

In 1802 a convention was entered into between the United States and 
Georgia which resulted in an agreement by which that State ceded to 
the United States all its territory west of the Chattahoochee River— 
out of which Alabama and Mississippi were formed—the United States 
promising to pay $1,250,000 and to extinguish the claims of Indians 
within the new boundaries of Georgia. The Cherokees clung tenaciously 
to the idea of tribal autonomy, as did the other civilized tribes, and 
Georgia began to insist more and more strongly that the Federal Gov- 
ernment carry out its agreement. A new home for the red man had 
become necessary, hence “Indian Territory,” that great reservation west 
of the Mississippi, carved out of the immense “Louisiana Purchase” of 
the year 1803. 

With carefully codrdinated plans between Federal and Georgia goy- 
ernments the removal to the western lands could have been accomplished 
with a minimum of suffering for the Indians. The facts of the case 
are that it was not so carried out. State and Government authorities 
seemed hopelessly at variance, and the Cherokees were caught between 
the upper and nether millstones. 


State Lirerary anp Histortcat Association 67 


The Cherokees themselves were divided on the issue, and there were 
two factions: the “Ross Party,” opposed to treaty and removal, and the 
“Ridge Party,” favoring a treaty on the best terms obtainable, per- 
ceiving the futility of further opposition. The Senate in May, 1836, 
ratified a treaty with representatives of the latter, and this led to bitter 
feud between the parties. 

In consequence, one of the saddest stories in American history is that 
of the removal of the Cherokees from their Eastern homes. Between 
sixteen and seventeen thousand men, women and children left Brainerd 
in the fall of 1838 with a winter’s journey before them. Rigors of the 
weather and ravages of disease attacked the exiles with dreadful fatality 
and soon the great caravan became a monstrous funeral procession. The 
time of travel increased to ten months, and at the end of the journey 
one-fourth of the company had found graves by the wayside. 

When these storm clouds broke over the Cherokees their fury struck 
the mission stations also. Missionaries were arrested, but later released. 
The Cherokee lands having been previously distributed by lots, Ooch- 
gelogy was seized, and on January 1, 1833, claimants presented them- 
selves for Springplace. The missionaries sought refuge across the Ten- 
nessee line. The intruders had brought with them plenty of whiskey, 
and when night came Springplace, where for many years each night had 
resounded the Indian children’s sweet song of praise and the voices of 
united prayer, echoed with the discordant sounds of drunkenness and 
revelry. 

For several years the Moravian mission was maintained in Tennessee. 
At the last solemn Communion service before the Moravian Cherokees 
took their staff in hand, the missionaries announced that the Society in 
Salem had resolved to reéstablish the mission in the new territory. 

Accordingly in September, 1838, three Brethren set out in a sturdy 
covered wagon “Westward Ho!” They were forty-one days on the 
journey of over 800 miles. 

The large reservation for the Cherokees lay in the northeast corner 
of the Territory and covered about 3,800 square miles. Here the tribe 
was settled, and gradually the breaches between opposing parties were 
healed. Then followed for the Nation years of wonderful prosperity 
and advancement—political, educational, and spiritual. 

Of the Moravian mission in the new land only an outline can be given 
in the limited time of this paper. Four main stations and over a score 
of preaching places were established. Schools were maintained with 
splendid results until the Cherokee free schools and national seminaries 
to a large degree superceded the denominational school. There were 
repeated, spiritual revivals of religion and hundreds of Cherokees 


68 Twernty-seconp AnnuaL SEssion 


entered the Moravian household of faith. Moravian methods were slow 
but thorough. The long years of the maintenance of the mission show 
scarcely any lapses into heathenism, and Moravian converts were con- 
spicuous in positions of responsibility—schools, business enterprises, 
and offices of government. 

Other denominations prospered greatly. The Cherokees had em- 
braced Christianity and were experiencing that “Godliness is profitable 
unto all things,” good houses, good churches, good schools, law and order, 
material prosperity, spiritual blessing, and life eternal. 

The heroic sacrifices entailed upon the southern Moravian Church and 
upon missionaries make the story of the work in the Territory a romance 
sn the annals of God’s Kingdom. Time fails to tell of the death of 
two young wives of missionaries, far from home and kindred, within 
the space of a few days, the husband of one making the caskets for both 
handmaidens of the Lord while blinding tears hindered his work. Diaries 
of the thousand-mile horse-and-carriage journeys repeatedly undertaken 
by missionaries and members of the Mission Board from Salem to 
Indian Territory are fascinating chapters of the narrative. On one 
such journey of visitation an aged Bishop of the church ventured with 
presentiment that he would never return alive. He died in Stone 
County, Mo., on the return journey and was buried by his faithful com- 
panion and sympathetic strangers. Later his body was brought to 
Salem. Within a few days of the Bishop’s death one of the missionaries 
died and the widow and little fatherless children made the sad, thousand- 
mile journey homeward. 

Came the convulsion of the Civil War which brought again a divided 
Cherokee Nation. One missionary was arrested and imprisoned for 
several months; another was murdered by a party of Cherokees and his 
body, mutilated by hogs, was found by the half-grown son of the arrested 
missionary. He and his mother dug a shallow grave. Within a few 
weeks the widow had succumbed to the shock. One of the stations was 
set on fire by hostile Cherokees and completely destroyed. The whole 
mission was disrupted for the remainder of the strife. 

Rehabilitated after the war, the mission continued for three decades, 
though carried on with increasing cost and difficulties, owing to the 
ereat distance from the home base of the church. One fatal defect of 
the Moravian mission lay in the failure to train the Cherokees to con- 
tribute to the work and to feel responsibility for their mission. Under 
these conditions the work depended for its hfe upon contributions from 
the Salem Church and the products of two 160-acre farms upon which 
the principal stations were located. Under the Curtis Act, a compre- 
hensive legislative provision of Congress, finally ratified by the Chero- 


Stats Lirrrary AnD HistorrcaL AssocrIaTION 69 


kees in 1899, Federal jurisdiction was extended over the entire Territory, 
lands were allotted in severalty and the Indians became citizens of the 
United States. By the provisions of this law, churches were allowed 
but four acres each and the Moravian Board deemed it impossible to 
continue the work on this basis. Hence the venerable mission among 
Creeks and Cherokees, extending over 164 years, came to an end in 
1899, work among Indians in Canada and Southern California in a 
measure compensating for its loss. 

After a few years the Danish Lutheran Church entered the sphere of 
Moravian labors in the Territory. There are Moravian Cherokees still 
living, now under the care of this church. 

Had there been in the latter days spirits of the calibre of Chief 
Charles Hicks, of the old Springplace, Georgia, mission, there would be 
flourishing churches today in the Territory. 

The influence of the Moravian pioneer mission in the civilization and 
uplift of an entire Indian tribe is beyond estimation. The results of the 
mission are conserved in our Father’s House. Its hundreds of Cherokee 
converts are at home with God, together with their missionaries who 
loved not their own lives unto death to bring to them the Gospel. 

Other denominations have nobly carried on the work and share its 
triumph. 

And in the Cherokee harvest the Lord “shall see of the travail of his 
soul, and shall be satisfied.” 


Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative 
Departments 


By C. C. PEARSON Cus 
Wake Forest College 


There is no history of any North Carolina State executive or admin- 
istrative department, board or commission. This lack, however, is the 
rule in other States also; and it is only recently that departments of the 
Federal Government have received serious historical attention. Nor 
does the statement refer to special studies only. Our general histories, 
State and National, devote little attention to ordinary administration 
save when it has been extraordinarily bad. Yet consider the magnitude 
and importance of this work. The North Carolina Blue Book of 1918 
lists twenty-eight separate State departments or boards or commissions, 
and if we add the boards of educational and charitable institutions (as 
we should do) the total was sixty-one. Save for the small sums that go 
to members of the Legislature and the courts it is these that spend the 
tax money. One of them is now in process of spending a minimum of 
fifty millions in a great construction program. Another claims to be 
saving ordinary citizens one and a half millions a year in “cost values” 
and many millions more in “vital values.” We have it on eminent 
authority that another has more power than Julius Oxsar ever had— 
power over property, revenue and politics. Certainly in the course of 
their normal activities they reach into every factory, school and home 
with hands that help or hinder in no uncertain way. To these con- 
siderations let us add that some of them are very old, tracing their 
lineage in unbroken descent from colonial days, with a wealth of family 
records and traditions and perhaps, like our State Department, with 
offspring of no mean importance. These facts, I think, justify the in- 
quiry: Ought we not (1) secure special historical studies of our admin- 
istrative agencies and (2) incorporate their findings in our general 
histories? And if the undertaking is desirable, should not this Society 
lend encouragement and assistance? 

Let us approach our first inquiry by considering the character of the 
suggested special studies. They should be monographs, I am sure. Each 
will show, of course, the origin of the institution treated: was it in imi- 
tation of some other State or intended to satisfy some new want of 
society? If the latter, was it political or economic and social in nature? 
Was it a want of all the people or of some class or group? How was 
sentiment in its favor developed, how crystallized and forced upon the 


Strate Lirrrary anp HistoricaL AssocraTION 71 


attention of the Legislature? Perhaps there was an organized “move- 
ment” in favor of the idea and an organized opposition; these must be 
analyzed and described. The study will show the powers of the institu- 
tion and the machinery for giving them effect, carefully discriminating 
between real and nominal powers and clearly showing what could be 
done and how. If clumsiness or crookedness of law-making rendered 
the attempt abortive, this fact will be recorded. Since needs change, 
powers and machinery change; hence both must be traced in their de- 
velopment. Above all, the study must show how the office functioned, 
and in so doing it will take us away from the central office down to the 
county and the township and the individual—will show how much the 
individual was controlled, how much served, and how much taxed for 
each specific service. And lastly, it will describe the men who organized 
and ran the institution, our civil servants or masters. 

Now what specific needs would such special studies meet? The ques- 
tion must be answered, for in these days one may not encourage lightly 
a new series of monographs. The data supplied would certainly be 
very useful to our public men, our teachers and our general historians. 
Our public men usually approach an institutional topic from the histori- 
cal viewpoint; consider, for example, the almost invariable compilations 
which precede a constitutional convention—in States where such as- 
semblages are still permitted! And how can an administrator check 
his work and his ideas save by others’ records? You say, he himself 
can look up the matter in laws, messages and reports. Can he? Only, 
I think, if he possesses the qualities of both administrator and historian, 
and the time of both. And consider the student of “Government.” He, 
too, must approach matters historically. Where can he get his facts? 
Yet there are many of this tribe, their number is growing, and they are 
going to play a conspicuous part in affairs of state. What a boon it 
would be to have, for example, data that illustrates how the public 
makes up its mind and how laws and officers are helpless before this 
public opinion! And how could we obtain such abundant and concrete 
testimony as from an auditor who naively admitted the failure of a new 
tax law in the face of general opposition to paying the tax in the nine- 
ties or from prohibition officers who might allege the same in our own 
times ? 

There remains to be stated the chief service which such studies would 
render. They would provide, I think, materials for the writers of our 
general histories and perhaps (let us say it to provoke discussion) sug- 
gest new points of view. The capacity of our recent historians requires 
us to assume that they have been waiting for such careful preliminary 
work. For their stories are not rounded out and the lessons which these 


12 Twenty-sEconp ANNUAL SESSION 


stories should teach are sometimes lacking. For example, among our 
favorite topics are movements, elections, personages, economic and social 
progress, and political theory. Now is the story of, say, a farmers’ 
movement complete until we know whether the department and the com- 
mission to which it led actually obtained for farmers the results which 
they sought? Elections, indeed, are often but games between rival fac- 
tions; but is the story of the game more important than the checking of 
the candidate’s promises against his post-election performance? And is 
it not time that we give to the man who year by year keeps the machin- 
ery of government going the same fullness of honorable mention that we 
accord to him who acted well in an emergency? Taxation statistics are 
dull and hard to remember; but how they could be made to illuminate 
the historian’s paragraphs on social morality! And how could a better 
commentary on our changing theory of the State be written than by a 
simple narrative of the departments’ expanding services in everyday 
affairs? We began with a theory of political democracy, and we have 
given it a wonderful practical application. We began also with a theory 
of laissez faire, but we have ’bout-faced toward State socialism. This 
change is profoundly important. Our people must be taught by their 
historians why it came about and how it came about and how it affects 
their individual lives. And I for one believe that historians must show 
likewise why we have had to change so largely from a government by 
laws to government by commissions, and how improper organization of 
our administrative agencies has cost and is costing us heavily in dollars 
and in service. 

To this argument it may be replied that State administrative agencies 
have but recently become of first rate importance. I answer, So much 
the better. If we hurry we can make our history take the dominant 
note of our times. That note is social. If we do not, how can we expect 
to influence our generation ? 

I shall have to admit that the task will be difficult and lacking in 
romantic interest. The bulkiness of our recent records, especially our 
newspaper records, is discouraging and their omissions alarming. Omis- 
sions we may supply, if we hurry, from the recollections of pioneer par- 
ticipants. The wisdom of the Society will, I think, readily suggest 
methods for stimulating interest and perhaps for diminishing the labor 
of the task. 


The Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina 


By Louis R. Wi1son) <A 
Librarian of the University of North Carolina 


Speaking in Greensboro before the graduating class of the State 
Normal and Industrial School in June, 1897, the late Walter Hines 
Page, in the course of an address entitled “The Forgotten Man,” said: 


There are no great libraries in the State, nor do the people yet read, nor 
have the publishing houses yet reckoned them as patrons, except the pub- 
lishers of school books. 


That was a quarter of a century ago, just when the first public library 
in North Carolina was being established in Durham, and three years 
before the State Literary and Historical Association proposed the estab- 
lishment of what have come to be known as the thirty-dollar school 
libraries. 

Since 1897 the situation, which Mr. Page so correctly described, has 
vastly improved. But the improvement has fallen so far short of what 
it is desirable it should be that recent investigations made by Mr. Ben 
Dixon McNeill and Miss Nell Battle Lewis, of the News and Observer, 
and by the editors of the University News Letter, prove conclusively 
that what Mr. Page said in the late 1890’s is relatively true in the 
early 1920’s. Today North Carolin has no truly great library running 
up into the hundreds of thousands of volumes, North Carolinians by 
and large are not yet a reading people, and the publishing houses, other 
than those that publish school texts or high priced but little used sub- 
scription sets sold by agents, have not reckoned North Carolinians as 
their patrons, despite the fact that the State stands fifth in the total 
value of its agricultural products, ninth or tenth in the amount of 
Federal income taxes it pays, and is building roads at the rate of 
$50,000,000 biennially. 

Mr. Page offered no statistics in support of his statement. In the 
discussion which follows statistics are offered not so much for the pur- 
pose of supporting the statement as for showing just what the situation 
is in the State in order that proper measures may be devised to change 
the situation for the better. 


Puszric Lipraries 


According to the statistics appearing in the June, 1922, issue of The 
North Carolina Inbrary Bulletin, only 35 of the 62 towns in the State 
having populations of from 2,000 to 48,000 possessed public libraries, 


74 Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


and the total number of public and semi-public libraries for 100 coun- 
ties and a total population of approximately 2,600,000 was 64 for white 
people and three for negroes. These 67 libraries contained a total of 
213,408 volumes (or one book to every 12 men, women and children), a 
number which causes the State to rank 47th among the sisterhood of 
States, and which exceeds the number of automobiles and motor vehicles 
housed in garages in the State by only 64,981. Furthermore, 30 of these 
64 libraries reported incomes for all purposes ranging from $16.95 to 
$950.17, and the 64 plus the 3 colored libraries reported a total income 
of only $83,031, or 314 cents per man, woman, and child for all North 
Carolina. Winston, with a population of 48,395, led with $8,861, a per 
capita expenditure of 18 cents, whereas the standard recommended by 
the American Library Association is $1, or five times as much. Char- 
lotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro had library incomes slightly above $8,000, 
_ while Asheville and Durham received $7,445 and $6,757 respectively. 

Similarly, statistics concerning the addition of new volumes, the num- 
ber of borrowers in the State, and the total circulation, show that 
although there were only 191,246 volumes on the shelves at the begin- 
ning of the year, only 22,162 new volumes—less than one to every 100 
inhabitants—were added during the year, that only 85,882 inhabitants— 
one in every thirty—were registered as borrowers, and the total cireu- 
lation of the 213,408 volumes among the 85,882, not the 2,600,000, was 
727,905. Asheville, with a book collection of 10,949 and a population 
of 28,504, circulated 99,218 volumes, the largest total for any North 
Carolina city, which, when measured by the standard American library 
turnover of five per capita, should have been 142,520, or 42 per cent 
greater than it actually was. In addition to these loans, the North 
Carolina Library Commission circulated 616 traveling libraries of 40 
volumes each in 414 stations in 98 counties, and loaned a total of 15,659 
titles through its package library service. But with all this done, the 
circulation of public library books involved not more than 100,000 
families or 500,000 men, women, and children, leaving the remaining 
2,100,000 inhabitants without public library service. 


ScHooLt AND CoLLEecEe LIBRARIES 


The school population of North Carolina today is approximately 900,- 
000. Of this number 850,000 are pupils in the common schools, 40,000 
are pupils in high schools, and 10,000 are college students. . 

Prior to March, 1901, the common schools had, practically speaking, 
no books. By legislative enactment in 1901 provision was made for the 
establishment of $30 original libraries containing an average of 85 


“I 


Or 


Srate Lirrrary anp Historicat AssociaTION 


volumes, and later $15 supplementary libraries containing 35 volumes. 
On November 30, 1920, there were 4960 of the original libraries, con- 
taining a total of approximately 421,600 volumes and costing $148,800, 
and 2,331 of the supplementary libraries, containing 81,565 volumes 
and costing $34,965. One half of the common schools of the State had 
‘no libraries at all. That is, in the twenty years from 1901 to 1920, 
$183,768 was spent to acquire 503,165 books for one-half of the school 
children of the State to read. To date, the other half have gone bookless, 
except as they have drawn upon funds other than those appropriated 
by the State and counties. 

In addition to the fact that no provision has been made for one-half 
of the schools, it is also true that failure to provide the most careful 
sort of oversight has resulted in many instances in only their partial use. 
Questionnaires covering the white schools of Orange, Guilford, and 
Wayne counties for 1921-22 show the following situation: 

Orange County.—Of 48 white schools in Orange, including the 
graded schools of Chapel Hill and Hillsboro, seven have no libraries 
whatever, and the 1,586 pupils enrolled have access to a total of 3,692 
volumes, or slightly more than two books per pupil. Eighteen of the 41 
libraries are open only during the session. In answer to the direct 
question, How much are the books used during term time? ten out of 
the 25 teachers answering responded, Not very much! One high school 
spent $150 for new books. Three other schools spent $10, $20, and $5 
respectively for new books. The other 44 spent nothing. Four schools 
subscribed for a total of 23 newspapers and magazines, the other 44 for 
none. Practically every teacher reported the presence of some books in 
the homes of the pupils, but one concluded the questionnaire with the 
comment that the patrons seemed to take scarcely any interest in schools, 
books, or newspapers. 

Guilford County—In Guilford County 70 schools reported 7,333 
pupils enrolled. The city schools of Greensboro, which own from 10,000 
to 12,000 volumes, and which are spending $2,000 for books and $250 
for periodicals this year, were not included. Forty-six of the schools 
taught only the first seven grades; 24 taught from one to four grades of 
high school subjects. Sixty-two of the 70 had libraries with a total of 
8,975 volumes. Only 25 of the libraries were open in the summer, 29 
reported a monthly total circulation of 1,165 or 40 volumes per school, 
and only $743.15, or ten cents per pupil, was spent for new books during 
the year. Twenty schools possessed an encyclopedia, 27 an unabridged 
dictionary, and 15 subscribed for newspapers and magazines. The 
others lacked these indispensable aids to first-class school work. Teachers 
indicated the presence of books and papers in the majority of homes, 


76 Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


and a number of schools reported the use of library material from the 
public library at Greensboro which maintains a county service. 

Wayne County.—Forty-eight schools outside of Goldsboro in Wayne 
County reported 3,331 pupils enrolled. Forty-five possessed libraries 
totaling 4,041 volumes, and 24 were open in the summer. Fourteen 
schools reported a total monthly circulation of 254 volumes or an aver-’ 
age of 18 per school per month. Nineteen schools reported efforts to 
improve their libraries, a total of $195.10 having been raised for this 
purpose. Nine schools owned an encyclopedia, 26 an unabridged dic- 
tionary, and 13 subscribed for periodicals. Forty of the teachers re- 
ported the presence of papers and magazines in the homes of the pupils, 
and 37 the presence of books. 


Hicu Scuoor Lisraries 


Figures for high school libraries in North Carolina are practically 
non-existent. No special fund other than that for the $30 and $15 
libraries has been appropriated by the State and counties for the pur- 
chase of books for high school libraries, and as a result no record has 
been kept by the State Department of Education. Schools here and 
there have secured funds for books in various ways, but, except in the 
case of a few of the larger city high schools, no permanent policy has 
been provided for their steady adequate upbuilding. Only in 1921 was 
the possession of a library of 300 volumes by junior high schools and 
500 volumes by senior high schools set by the State Educational Depart- 
ment as a prerequisite to being placed in the class of accredited schools, 
and an adequate list prepared by the State High School Inspector from 
which the books could be selected. 

Book Collections Small—How deplorable the situation has been was 
indicated by the answers to a questionnaire concerning high school 
facilities submitted to 100 Freshmen in the University in 1921-22. Of 
the 100 Freshmen, 96 replied that they had the use of some form of 
library in high school. Four had not. Seventy-six reported the presence 
of reference books in the school library. Eighty-five had access to an 
encyclopedia or unabridged dictionary, fifty-eight to an atlas, and 
thirty-nine, through their connection with the High School Debating 
Union, had used package library material from the University Library 
and twenty-six from the North Carolina Library Commission. Only 
33 had had access to a public library, had learned how to use a dic- 
tionary-card catalogue, and were able on the first day of their college 
career, to use the tools which a great college library places at the dis- 
posal of its students. To the other 67 the card catalogue, the periodical 


Srarp Literary AND HistoricaL ASSOCIATION 6rd 


indexes, the bibliographical works, the whole library, in fact, around 
which their college work should revolve, was an unknown quautity. 
These 67 presented the necessary 15 units in English, history, science, 
and language. But the fundamental unit, the unit of knowing how to 
use a well-equipped modern library, they, and their less fortunate high 
school classmates who stayed at home and whose future self-education 
is almost entirely dependent upon the use of what Carlyle called the 
peoples’ university—the public library—they failed to acquire. 


CotitecEe Lrprarizs 


College libraries, seemingly, have fared better than any other class in 
the State. From the report appearing in The North Carolina Library 
Bulletin for June, 1922, there were 416,353 volumes in the libraries of 
26 North Carolina colleges, the State Library, and the Library of the 
Supreme Court, and 27,960 were in the libraries of six colored institu- 
tions. The grand total was 444,313 volumes, the largest single collec- 
tion being that of the University, which numbered 108,405 volumes. 
These same institutions added a total of 25,479 new books during the 
year and regularly received 2,807 newspapers and periodicals of a 
permanent nature. No statistics of income and expenditure were given. 
Six of the institutions added less than 100 volumes during the year. 
The actual figures were from 16 to 62. Five added between 101 and 
200 volumes, nine between 201 and 500, four between 501 and 1,000, 
six between 1,001 and 2,000, one between 2,001 and 8,000 and one over 
8,000. The grand total including State Library and Supreme Court, 
was only 25,479, a total less by 505 than the 25,984 added to the library 
of the University of California alone. The Library of the University 
of Michigan came within 26 of the total, Yale doubled it, and Harvard, 
with 73,100 volumes, practically trebled it! 

Total Collections Small—Not only are the annual additions small, 
but the collections to which they are added are far too limited. To add 
16 volumes to a collection, which at the end of the year totals only 
2,014, is quite different from adding 2,047 to a collection, which at the 
end of the year totals 59,000, or 25,453, in the case of Michigan, to an 
exclusive total of 457,847. 

As compared with the libraries of colleges and universities in the 
North and West, the libraries of these North Carolina institutions are 
fearfully outdistanced. Wesleyan University, the Methodist College 
of Connecticut, had 125,100 volumes in 1921. Haverford College, the 
Friends’ college, of Pennsylvania, had 80,000; the State Normal College 
of Michigan had 45,000; the State Agricultural College of Iowa had 


78 Twenty-seconp ANNUAL SxEssIon 


80,000; Wellesley and Smith, two colleges for women in Massachusetts, 
had 100,000 and 78,600 respectively, and the collections at Johns Hop- 
kins and Princeton, not to mention the really big collections of Columbia 
and Yale and Harvard, ran well up beyond the quarter-of-a-million 
mark. 


NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS 


Since Mr. Page made his address in Greensboro, newspapers and 
magazines have sprung up on every hand. Daily rural free delivery has 
penetrated every quarter and, seemingly, the State has made a tremen- 
dous advance in its reading of these two types of literature. But when 
a study of the circulations of these types of publication is made, it 
becomes evident that North Carolina ranks approximately 44th or 45th 
from the top among the 48 states in its reading of material of this 
sort. According to The Editor and Publisher for June 10, 1922, North 
Carolina’s 9 morning and 27 afternoon dailies were circulating 188,781 
copies, or one copy to every 13.5 inhabitants. Massachusetts led the 
country with a circulation of one copy to every 1.9 inhabitants. The 
average for the United States was one copy to every 3.6 persons. North 
Carolina ranked 45th from the top, or 4th from the bottom, with 
South Carolina, New Mexico, and Mississippi below. The mailing lists 
of the Greensboro Daily News, News and Observer, Charlotte Observer, 
North Carolina Christian Advocate, Biblical Recorder, Charity and 
Children, Orphan's Friend, and University News Letter, run from 
17,500 to 30,000 and, if read by an average of 5 persons, reach from 
87,500 to 150,000 people, while The Progressive Farmer and The North 
Carolina Health Bulletin, with 50,000 circulation, reach approximately 
250,000 people, or one in every 10 in the State. 

Unpleasant Facts.—Statisties published in 1921 by the circulation 
and advertising departments of The Ladies’ Home Journal, The Inter- 
ary Digest, and The Saturday Evening Post—three of the most popular 
and widely disseminated journals of the country—show that North 
Carolina ranks low in her reading of these publications. 

One North Carolinian out of every 138 received a copy of The Liter- 
ary Digest in 1921, while the average for the United States was one in 
every 85. Only one person in 149 in North Carolina received a copy of 
The Saturday Evening Post, against an average of one in every 50 
throughout the rest of the country. North Carolina postmasters and 
news agencies delivered one copy of The Ladies’ Home Journal to one 
person in 116, whereas their colleagues throughout the country did prac- 
tically twice as big business. Stated differently in the terms of rank 
among the forty-eight states, Oregon, which is a much younger State 


Srate Lirerary anp HistoricaL AssocraTION 79 


than North Carolina, and has its Japanese problem, ranks first in the 
circulation of The Ladies’ Home Journal with one copy to every 33 
inhabitants, North Carolina ranks 40th, with one copy to every 117, and 
Mississippi stands at the bottom with one copy to every 181 of her 
citizens. In the case of The Interary Digest and The Saturday Evening 
Post, North Carolina ranks 42d and 46th respectively, while 73-year-old 
California leads in both instances with one copy to every 41 and 22 
inhabitants respectively. 

Among Ourselves.—Coming closer home than California, North Caro- 
lina makes a poor showing among her immediate neighbors. In the 
ease of The Ladies’ Home Journal (the State makes its best showing 
in its reading of this publication, thanks to the women, rather than in 
The Literary Digest and The Saturday Evening Post) North Carolina 
ranks 40th. Florida (assisted by her tourists, possibly) ranks 25th; 
Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Texas also stand ahead 
of her. Tennessee equals her, and Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, South 
Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi stand below her. 


In the case of The Literary Digest Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, 
- South Carolina, Kentucky, and Mississippi fall below her, whereas in 
the case of The Saturday Evening Post all outrank her except Missis- 
sippi and South Carolina. 

County Quotas.——Coming still closer home, the analyses of circula- 
tions furnished by these three journals together with The Progressive 
Farmer make clear the further fact that not all North Carolina counties 
read equally. The national advertiser who runs a page advertisement in 
The Literary Digest, for example, does not have the same number per 
capita of readers in all of the 100 counties. Only 3 copies of this pub- 
lication were received by or sold to residents of Graham county during 
the week in April, 1921, when the audit was made. But even with that 
the average of one copy to every 1,624 inhabitants was higher than that 
of Alleghany with 4 copies distributed over a total population of 7,403, 
or one copy to every 1,850 inhabitants! Buncombe, on the other hand, 
with its 64,148 inhabitants, received 1,454 copies, or one copy to every 
44 inhabitants, and thereby led the State, while Mecklenburg, New 
Hanover, Pasquotank, and Wake followed in close order with 65, 67, 
70, and 73 respectively. 

Among the Farmers.—An analysis of the circulation of the Progres- 
sive Farmer shows the same thing, with the difference that the leader- 
ship passes from Buncombe to Randolph. Randolph, with a total mail- 
ing list of 978 (at the time the audit was made), led with one copy to 
every 31 inhabitants. Buncombe dropped to 88th position with one copy 


80 Twernty-seconp ANNUAL SEssION 


to every 117 inhabitants, and Alleghany, moved up six places from the 
bottom to 94th, with one copy to every 160 of her citizens, yielding the 
lowest position to Dare with a total of twelve copies to a population of 
5,115, or one paper to every 426. 

Combined Circulation.—Analyses of the circulations of single papers, 
however, do not give an adequate picture of what North Carolina coun- 
ties read. Consequently, the combined circulations of The Literary 
Digest, The Ladies’ Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and The 
Progressive Farmer give a cross-section picture of North Carolina read- 
ing never given before, and one which should receive the careful study of 
every one interested in the economic as well as the social and cultural 
development of the State. 

Buncombe, with a total of 5,000 copies of the four papers combined, 
leads with the highest per capita circulation of one copy to every 13 
inhabitants. Mecklenburg has the greatest total, 5,310, but ranks 3d, 
being outdistanced by New Hanover with a total of 2,967, or one paper 
to every 15 people. Forsyth, in spite of the fact that it contains the 
largest city in the State, is outranked by 16 counties. 

At the other end of the table Alleghany, Ashe, and Graham fill the 
98th, 99th, and 100th positions, the 1,472 inhabitants of Graham re- 
ceiving 1 copy of The Ladies’ Home Journal, 2 copies of The Saturday 
Evening Post, 3 copies of The Literary Digest, and 20 of The Progres- 
sive Farmer—26 copies all told, or one to every 187 inhabitants. 

From even a most superficial study of this picture, two facts are 
distinctly clear. North Carolina is not reading her quota of the stand- 
ard journals of the country; and the counties which do not contain 
large cities, with highly organized public libraries, bookstores, and 
news-stands, read far less than those that have these facilities. 

Two other observations might be made. North Carolina country 
areas are largely unaware of what the rest of the world is thinking 
about, so far as it is reflected in the magazines of the day; and the high 
average for Buncombe and Moore counties (in which the principal 
tourists resorts of North Carolina are located) may be due to the yisi- 
tors rather than home-stayers! 


Booxstores AND NEwSs-STANDS 


Data concerning the sales of bookstores and news-stands is extremely 
meagre. A canvass of representative stores in Asheville, Charlotte, 
Winston, Greensboro, Durham, Raleigh, and Wilmington, for example, 
showed total sales as follows of four books which were widely read 
throughout the rest of the country; Main Street, 1,180; Outline of 


Srate Lirrrary AnD HistoricaLt AssocraTIon 81 


History, 239; Economic Consequences of Peace, 3; If Winter Comes, 
784. Requests made upon bookstores for information concerning sales 
of books published by local authors were answered negatively, with the 
result that data had to be obtained direct from the authors, the chief 
purport of which was that books lke Hamilton’s Reconstruction, 
Brooks’ North Carolina Poems, Avery’s Idle Comments, McNiell’s Songs 
Merry and Sad, Poe’s Where Half the World is Waking Up, and Connor 
and Poe’s life and Addresses of C. B. Aycock, were sold in numbers 
ranging from 250 to 5,000, the latter being just one half of the number 
of copies of Wheeler’s History of North Carolina sold in the early 
1850's. 

News-stands and cigar stands sell thousands of magazines such as 
The Red Book, The Cosmopolitan, and The American Magazine. The 
Independent, The World’s Work, Scribner’s, The Outlook, The Atlantic 
Monthly, and other magazines of a more serious type are rarely offered 
for sale at all. But even with the assistance of the news-stands, the 
total sales and subscriptions of The Red Book, for example, is one copy 
to 408 inhabitants, while the average for the United States is one copy 
to 147, and on the same basis the total sales in North Carolina showed 
that the State average for a dozen magazines of the most popular 
character was less than half of the average of the country at large. 


Booxs ror NeGRors 


Little comment has ever been made upon the use of books in the 
State by negroes. Until Professor W. C. Jackson, of the North Caro- 
lina College for Women, recently began an investigation of this subject, 
little data was available. From 35 answers to a questionnaire sent to 
the public libraries of the State, and from statistics published in The 
Inbrary Bulletin for June, he discovered that the 750,000 or more 
negroes in North Carolina have a total of only five public libraries and 
24 county training school and college libraries. Information from the 
State Department of Education and from a number of county superin- 
tendents also indicates the presence of an occasional $30 library in the 
rural schools for negroes. In the absence of anything approximating 
complete information, it appears, therefore, that the public library 
book resources of this one-third of North Carolina’s population are 
approximately 15,000 volumes, and that the private book resources of 
some 12 colleges and 12 county training schools for negroes are approxi- 
mately 30,000 volumes—a fact which inevitably must have a profound 
influence upon the State’s ability to attain its fullest development. 


6 


82 TwENTY-sEconD ANNUAL SESSION 


Mvucxu Progress Has Been Mane 


So much for the negative side of the picture. There is a positive 
side, and it is distinctly interesting. While there were no tax-supported, 
free public libraries when Mr. Page made his address, there are 67 
today, with a total of over 200,000 volumes. There were no school 
libraries in 1897. Today 500,000 volumes are in the keeping of rural 
schools and a beginning has been made in the careful upbuilding of 
high school libraries. In 1901 the circulation of all newspapers in 
North Carolina totaled 612,230. In 1922, it totaled 1,420,982, an in- 
crease of 131 per cent. In 1902 the Federation of Women’s Clubs was 
organized, with a library extension department; in 1904 the North Caro- 
lina Library Association began operation, and in 1909 the State estab- 
lished the Library Commission to operate traveling and package li- 
braries, and to promote every form of library activity. 1912 saw the 
organization of the High School Debating Union which has involved 
from 10,000 to 20,000 high school boys and girls in the careful use of 
library materials, and today over 440,000 volumes are available for the 
use of the students enrolled in North Carolina colleges. In three in- 
stances a limited type of county-wide library service has been provided, 
and a method has been demonstrated by which adequate library service 
can be provided for the entire citizenship of North Carolina. 


Wuat Are THE Cavszs? 


At the beginning of this paper it was made clear that the purpose 
of the study was not merely to get at the facts, but rather to discover 
the causes which produced the situation and effective means for changing 

‘it for the better. 

Of the causes, quite a few have been presented in the rather general 
discussion which has recently been carried on in the State press. Miss 
Elizabeth Kelly, whose work has been that of eradicating adult illiteracy, 
attributes a part of the lack of interest in books to inability to read. 
Miss Mary DeVane thinks that North Carolinians, until recently, have 
not had sufficient leisure from the task of making a living to devote to 
reading. Mr. R. B. House contends that North Carolinians are too 
good talkers to read. Miss Nell Battle Lewis finds the lack of an 
aristocracy to be the chief contributing cause. And still another says 
that no one can ever become a real lover and therefore reader of books 
who did not become one through reading as a child. 

To these causes, all of which have undoubtedly contributed to the 
production of the situation, I wish to add four others: (1) North 


Strate Lirrrary anp HistoricaLt AssocraTIon 83 


Carolina is a sparsely settled agricultural State, whose life until recently 
has been simple rather than complex; (2) books have been thought of 
largely in the terms of culture and not as tools or means of promoting 
individual welfare; (3) publicity concerning books and libraries has 
been extremely limited; and (4) those whose duty it has been to teach 
others the use of books have not been trained in their use themselves. 

Until the boll weevil complicated the growing of cotton, that agricul- 
tural activity in North Carolina was considered, to speak in the ver- 
nacular, “fool-proof.” But with the advent of the pest, the illiterate 
negro and the mule are having to give place to the man who can read 
a farmer’s bulletin and follow instructions for the application of the 
poisons to insure the weevil’s destruction. The boll weevil and the 
San Jose scale, to mention two enemies of the cotton grower and 
orchardist, have forced book-farming on at least two groups of North 
Carolina farmers. And complexity of any sort whatever will inevitably 
furnish a stimulus for investigation and the use of books where stimulus 
has been wanting heretofore. 

From time immemorial the public has recognized the necessity of the 
lawyer, the doctor, and the teachers possessing books. But by and 
large North Carolina has not thought of books as essential to the task 
of winning a living in other fields. When thought of at all, they have 
been thought of in the terms of “the higher culture,” rather than as the 
tools of the banker, the merchant, the cotton manufacturer, the engineer, 
the architect, the city manager, the health officer. Again it is only 
within the past few years in North Carolina that groups of students 
of the University and other institutions have discovered that books and 
trade magazines in the fields of accounting, salesmanship, and business 
administration can have a definitely practical value in fitting them for 
their careers in the business world, as well as aiding them in winning a 
degree, and, perhaps, stirring them with a great inspiration. Likewise, 
a profound change has been effected in the reading of women’s clubs. 
Once this centered largely around literature and the fine arts. Today 
the emphasis is shifting. Literature and the arts have not been aban- 
doned, but home economics, public welfare, public health, citizenship, 
home and town beautification, and the more practical affairs of modern 
life have come in for far more consideration than ever before. 

Simplicity of conditions previously obtaining in North Carolina and 
the placing of a wrong emphasis on the purpose of books, I believe, have 
contributed materially to the production of the situation I have de 
scribed. But the two greatest causes have been the failure of librarians 
and teachers and editors to sell the book idea and teach the use of books. 
From 1909 to 1912, The News and Observer, through The North Caro- 


84 TweENTy-sEconD ANNUAL SESSION 


lina Review, greatly stimulated interest in books and literature. The 
Library Bulletin began publication at the same time. But from 1912 
to 1921, a separate book page, devoted exclusively to the consideration of 
new books, was not carried as a regular distinctive feature of any 
North Carolina daily. Fortunately, this situation was changed by the 
‘Greensboro News in 1921, and now a half-dozen pages of matter con- 
cerning books of the day are appearing every Sunday in the leading 
papers of the State, with the result that book sales have steadily multi- 
plied. 

But the greatest cause contributing to this end has been the failure of 
those who have been in charge of libraries and books to instruct the 
public, particularly the school public, in the use of books. Although 
the State has placed over 500,000 volumes in rural school libraries, the 
teachers who have had charge of the collections have been given prac- 
tically no instruction in how to make them of use to their pupils. The 
reading habit is a habit that is acquired in childhood. It has to be 
developed. And if the teacher does not know how to interest children 
in books, the habit will not be acquired. Where teachers have known 
how to use books themselves, their pupils have learned to use them and 
love them. But until very recently such teachers have been exceedingly 
rare, and even now but little emphasis is being placed by the schools on 
the part books should play in the lives of their pupils and patrons. Stress 
is placed on the mechanics of reading, but not upon its real purpose in 
the life of the pupil. 


Wuart Are tHe Remepies ? 


In attempting to prescribe remedies for the improvement of this situa- 
tion, I am conscious that the advance must necessarily be slow, and that 
no one measure will bring about instantly the desired transformation. 
The processes now at work which have resulted in the progress evidenced 
in the past twenty-five years must be continued. However, I have three 
major suggestions to make: (1) that in the future public and school 
libraries stress the practical as well as the cultural value of books; 
(2) that the State Department of Education, in co-operation with the 
schools and colleges, provide adequate training on the part of teachers in 
the use of books; and (3) that the State commit itself unreservedly to 
a program of county-wide, tax-supported, free libraries which, with 
adequate financial support, can insure proper administration and ample 
book resources for the entire citizenship. 

I do not wish to preach a materialistic doctrine concerning books in 
this day when, apparently, we are already too materialistic. On the 


Strate Lirerary anp Histortcat Association 85 


contrary, I should like to place even greater emphasis upon the inspira- 
tional contribution books may make to men. But I do want the empha- 
sis to be placed at that point, be it what it may, that will gain the 
attention of the total adult citizenship; for books should appeal as 
much to members of Rotary and Kiwanis and Civitan clubs as to 
members of the Federation of Women’s Clubs. And in neither case 
should the reading of books be a fad, but a means to the living of a 
broader, better life. 

The State Department of Education, the Library Commission, and 
the colleges can, I am sure, greatly improve the school library situa- 
tion. Hereafter, in the county and college summer schools, teachers 
who are to have charge of schools containing libraries should be re- 
quired to study such library methods as will insure the proper use of 
the books by the pupils. For the grammar grades this instruction 
might be comparatively simple, but it should by no means be totally 
neglected. And for the high schools, which are just now being re- 
quired to provide libraries, a definite fund should be set aside in the 
school budget for their maintenance according to approved standards, 
and some teacher should be trained extensively in library manage- 
ment. In this respect North Carolina should follow the lead of Wis- 
consin, which, in 1919-20, required every high school in that State to 
employ a library-trained teacher to have charge of the high school 
library. No high school pupil, whether he intends to go to college or 
not, should be permitted to attend high school without acquiring some 
knowledge of the specific character of information which encyclopedias 
and dictionaries and atlases and compendiums of various sorts contain. 
And to be sure that he does know this, special books should be care- 
fully studied and questions based upon them should be answered with 
volume and page references, just as a lawyer cites his references in 
making out his brief. With this done, biography, and fiction, and 
poetry, and drama, and history, and science, and the arts can be sup- 
plied in adequate measure, and a State inspector of high school libraries 
can be put in the field who can see that proper library standards and 
practices prevail. 

No single North Carolina county has, to date, established a county- 
wide, tax-supported, free library. Guilford, Forsyth, and Durham have 
adopted the idea in part, and illustrate in a limited way what the func- 
tions of such a library are. But if North Carolina is to have adequate 
library service which will reach rural and urban dwellers alike, which 
will provide for both country and city schools, and will insure compe- 
tent, effective library administration, the county-wide library must 


86 Twernty-seconp AnnuAL Session 


be made the type through which this service shall come. In our 
sparsely settled country areas we should follow, and follow instantly, 
the example of California, in which 38 county libraries, in 1918, re- 
ceived an annual maintenance fund of $539,458, contained 945,856 
volumes, maintained 2,890 branch libraries, and served 1,549 school 
districts, every librarian being certificated, and serving under expert 
library supervision. 

This program, of course, will not usher in the millennium. That 
is too much to expect of it. But if it is adopted and carried out, it 
will be in key with our splendid progress in agriculture, and industry, 
and road building, and education. And it will contribute equally with 
them in the building up of a finer North Carolina civilization. 


North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922 


By Mary B. PALMER 
Secretary North Carolina Library Commission 


This Bibliography covers the period from November 1, 1921, to 
November 30, 1922. The term is here used to include the works of all 
native North Carolinians, regardless of present residence, and the 
works of writers who, although not born in North Carolina, have lived 
here long enough to become identified with the State. Pamphlets, con- 
tinuations, and periodical articles are not included. 


(Abbreviations and Symbols: il., illustrated; p., pages; ed., editor; 
comp., compiler.) 


Apams, RanpoteH GREENFIELD. Political ideas of the American revo- 
lution: Britannic-American contributions to the problem of im- 
perial organization, 1765-1775. 207p. il. Trinity College Press, 
Durham, 1922. 


Bonn, Paci Srantey anp SHERRILL, CLarENcE OsBorne. America in 
the world war: a summary of the achievements of the great re- 
public in the conflict with Germany: a romance in figures com- 
piled from many official and unofficial sources. 177p. Banta, 
1921. $1.50. 


Brown, Ricuarp L. History of the Michael Brown family of Rowan 
county. 190p. The author, Salisbury, N. C., 1921. $2.00. 


CuaMBerLAIN, Hopr Summerset (Mrs. J. R. Coamperzain). History 
of Wake county, North Carolina; with illus. by the author. 302p. 
Mrs. William Johnston Andrews, Raleigh, N. C., 1922. $5.25. 


Dantets, JosrepHus. Our navy at war. 390p. Doran, 1922. $3.00. 


Darean, Oxtve (Titrorp) (Mrs. Precram Darcan). Lute and furrow 
(poems). 140p. bds. Scribner, 1922. $1.75. 


Frizs, Apevarpe L., ed. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. 
1, il. North Carolina Historical Commission, Raleigh, N. C.- 


Hamitton, Josrpu Grecorre pe Routwac and Kyient, E. W. Making 
of citizens (National social science series). 146p. McClurg, 
1922. $1.00. 


88 TweEnNtTy-seconD ANNUAL SEssIon 


Hamitton, JosepH Grecorre pe Rovrmac, ed. Selections from the 
writings of Abraham Lincoln; ed. for school use. (The Lake Eng- 
lish classics.) 424p. Scott, 1922. $1.00. 


Harver, Wiuram Arten. Church in the present crisis; introd. by 
Peter Ainslie. 272p. Revell, 1921. $1.75. 


Hoskins, Josepn A., comp. President Washington’s diaries, 1791 to 
1799. 100p. J. A. Hoskins, Summerfield, N. C., 1922. $2.00. 


Jackson, Watter Curnton. A boy’s life of Booker T. Washington. 
147p. il. Macmillan, 1922. 88c. 


Kyicut, Encar Watztace. Public education in the South. 482p. Ginn, 
1922. $2.00. 


Kocu, Frepertck Henry. Carolina folk-plays. 160p. il. Holt, 1922. 
$1.75. 


Lanier, Jonn J. Washington the great American. Mason, Macoy 


Pub. Co., 45-59 John Street, New York, 1922. $1.50. 


Licutenstern, Gaston. From Richmond to North Cape. 160p. il., 
1922. William Byrd Press, Richmond, 1922. $2.00. 


Newsom, Darras Watton. Song and dream (poems). 174p. Strat- 
ford, 1922. $2.50. 


Poavr, JosepH E. The economics of petroleum. 375p. Wiley, 1921. 


Potzrocx, Joun Atrrep (RonteicH pe Convat, pseud). Fair lady of 
Halifax, or Colmey’s six hundred... 403p. The author, 411 N. 
Queen St., Kinston, N. C., 1920. $2.00. 


Porter, Samvet Jupson. Gospel of beauty, with a foreword by L. R. 
Scarborough. 13-118p. Doran, 1922. $1.25. 


Potrat, Epwin McNEr“t. Withered fig tree; studies in stewardship. 
74p. bds. Am. Bapt., 1921. $1.00. 


Poreat, Gorpon. Greatheart of the South, John Todd Anderson, medi- 
cal missionary. 123p. il. Doran, 1921. $1.50. 


Poreat, Huserr McNuru. Practical hymnology. 7-130p. il. Badger, 
R. G., 1921. $2.00. 


Sarrn, Cuartes AtpHonso, ed. Selected stories of O. Henry. 255p. 
il. Doubleday, 1922. $1.25. 


; 


State Literary anp Hisroricat AssociaTION 89 


Suiru, Wirti1am Atexanper. Family Tree Book. 304p. il.; priv. ptd., 
1922. Mrs. Bettie Smith Hughes, 102 N. Gramercy Place, Los 
Angeles, Cal. $10.00. 


Spence, Hersry Everett. A guide to the study of the English Bible. 
178p. Trinity College Press, Durham, 1922. 


Van Lanprnenam, Mary Oates (Spratt), (Mrs. Jonn van Lanprne- 
HAM). Glowing embers. 307p.; priv. ptd. The author, 500 East 
Ave., Charlotte, N. C., 1922. 


Weaver, Joun van Atstyne, Jr. In America. 80p. bds. Knopf, 
1921. $1.50. 


Weaver, JoHN van AtstyNE, Jk. Margey wins the game. 9-110p. bds. 
Knopf, 1922. $1.50. 


The Cult of the Second Best 
f\ 

By WALTER LIPPMANN sf 
Author “Public Opinion,” member editorial staff New York World 


Ladies and Gentlemen: 


Not so long ago Mr. Bernard Shaw wrote a play, or rather a whole 
series of plays, in which he said that there was no hope for mankind 
unless men learned to live at least three hundred years. He argued 
that civilization had become so complicated, and citizenship required 
so much more knowledge than people had time to acquire in one life- 
time, that the only way out was to live three or four times as long. 
Only then, only if we all went back to Methuselah, would we have time 
to grow wise, and would we have an interest in really settling our prob- 
lems. Today, said Mr. Shaw, we do not live long enough to become 
better than college freshmen and flappers in politics, and our attitude 
towards civilization is like that of an untidy tenant with a short lease 
who has no interest in the upkeep or improvement of the property. 

Mr. Shaw’s advice that we should live as long as Methuselah is rather 
difficult advice to follow. But of course Mr. Shaw wasn’t expecting 
us to take his advice. In fact, I fancy that if Mr. Lloyd George showed 
signs of living three hundred years, Mr. Shaw would promptly go out 
of his mind. What Mr. Shaw was doing was performing an old trick 
of his. The trick consists in getting hold of a perfectly solid truth, and 
then exploding that truth upon the public in the most outrageous and 
startling way he can imagine. 

Now the solid truth which Mr. Shaw had in the back of his mind 
was the conviction that men had in them the capacity to live splendidly 
if only they were not afraid to do so. His conviction is, I think, a 
very common one today. Wherever you go you run into the feeling 
that public life is kept second rate by great quantities of hokum and 
buncomb, by insincerities, by play to the galleries, by demagoguery, 
by propaganda, by lack of moral courage. To put it briefly, there is 
a widespread feeling in the land that the first-rate men don’t come to 
the top, or if they come that they are somehow compelled to conform 
to mediocre standards. This is an old charge against democracy. But 
in the past it has always been made by the aristocrats. Today it is 
perhaps the main topic of discussion among thinking people, and the 
charge of mediocrity in politics is made by democrats themselves. 

With your permission I shall tonight touch briefly on some aspects 
of this feeling that there is in public life a Cult of the Second Best. 


Spare Lirerary AND HisrortcaL AssocIATION 91 


Let me begin by specifying a little more exactly what I mean by the 
Cult of the Second Best. Some months ago at a friend’s house I met 
a very prominent member of the present administration. There is no 
need to mention his name, because I am not here to charge any one 
with anything but to illustrate a point which is a common experience 
in the daily life of almost every newspaper man. This prominent offi- 
cial talked to us at length that day on two questions which deeply con- 
cern the country. He talked about the coal strike which was then in 
progress and about the very bad economic organization of the bitumi- 
nous coal industry in particular. We asked him what was the remedy, 
and he then outlined in great detail a plan which was radical enough 
to make us all sit up straight. He said that no plan less radical than 
this one would cure the trouble, and that if the plan was not adopted 
the coal industry would drift from bad to worse. 

Now it is of no importance to us tonight whether the plan was a 
good one or a bad one. All I ask you to remember is that this very 
eminent politician believed whole-heartedly in it. I asked him when 
he expected to make the plan public, and he replied that he wasn’t 
going to make it public because the voters would not understand it and 
the thing would cause an awful hullabaloo. So the public has never 
yet found out, and does not yet know, what one of its highest and most 
respected officials thinks about the coal problem. 

We then got on to the subject of the debts owed by European govern- 
ments’ to the United States. Our distinguished guest told us, as if it 
were the most obvious thing in the world, that of course a large part 
of these debts were uncollectible. We asked him whether it was not 
important that this should be explained to the American people, and 
he answered that Congress would probably eat him alive if he blurted 
out such an unpleasant fact. / 

Now here were two instances where a man of great ability in high 
place was thinking one thing privately and saying another thing pub- 
licly. Does not this strike you as somehow a dangerous and corrupting 
thing in a government supposed to be founded on free and frank dis- 
cussion of public affairs? It strikes me as very corrupting intellectu- 
ally to the public official who starts by being afraid to say what he 
thinks and often ends by thinking what he says. It strikes me as 
unfair to the people at large that they should have to vote and form 
their opinions without being allowed to hear the sincerest thoughts of 
those who are on the inside and have the best opportunity to form true 
judgments. 

_ These two instances are not in the least exceptional in my experi- 
ence. I was at Paris through some part of the Peace Conference, and 


92 TwENTy-sEconD ANNUAL SESSION 


nothing seemed to me so utterly depressing as the contrast between 
what the men on the inside said in private and what they felt com- 
pelled to do and say in public. The Treaty of Versailles has been much 
criticized throughout the world since it was published, but it was just 
as severely criticized by the insiders at Paris before it was published. 
Nevertheless, there were things put into the treaty which every expert 
knew were unworkable and dangerous to the peace of Europe, because 
outside the conference people were howling for those things. Our own 
delegates at Paris were forced to accept provisions in that treaty which 
they knew to be bad, because every jingo in the Paris press, every jingo 
in Senator Lodge’s party, every Tory in England was demanding them. 
The story is now public property. You have only to read Ray Stannard 
Baker’s story based on President Wilson’s documents to see how much 
wiser our delegation was in private than it was able to be in public. 

About a year ago in London I was talking to an Englishman who 
had been a member of the British delegation about this very thing, and 
he told me a story out of his own experience which I feel at liberty to 
repeat. The story is approximately this: The conference had reached 
a deadlock over the size of the indemnity to be imposed on Germany. 
There were two proposals, an American and a British. The American 
proposal called for a sum of about fifteen billions. This was both just 
and within the capacity of Germany to pay. It was a sum which every 
expert knew was possible, and therefore, if adopted, it meant that the 
financial recovery of Europe could begin. This plan was known among 
the British at Paris as the Heavenly Peace. 

The other plan called for the payment of the impossible gigantic sum 
which Mr. Lloyd George had promised to secure in the frantic khaki 
election of 1918. This plan was known as the Hellish Peace, because 
if it was adopted everybody foresaw the very thing which is now hap- 
pening in Europe. They foresaw that it meant a frantic and futile 
effort to achieve the impossible, accompanied by disorder and suffering. 

Mr. Lloyd George was undecided. He knew that the Heavenly Peace 
was best for the world in the long run, but very bad politics in England 
at that moment. He knew that the Hellish Peace was good polities 
at the moment, but very bad for the world in the long run. So he took 
his advisers off to the country with him for the week-end, and for two 
days they debated whether to make a Heavenly Peace or a Hellish 
Peace. The Heavenly Party won the debate and they returned to Paris 
feeling immensely noble. 

But one of the members of the other party wired the news of the 
decision to England. Immediately the Tories set to work. One hun- 
dred and forty members of the House of Commons, whom somebody 


Strate Lirerary anp HistorrcaL AssocraTION 93 


described as men who had done extremely well for themselves in the 
war, signed a resolution threatening Mr. Lloyd George with political 
death if he yielded to the Americans. The Northcliffe press let loose 
all its thunder. This was more than Mr. Lloyd George could stand. 
So he switched over and demanded the Hellish Peace. 

These are sufficient illustrations of what is meant by the Cult of the 
Second Best. And I shall therefore ask you to consider next what such 
a condition means in popular government. It means in the first place 
that the people do not learn from the insiders what the insiders think 
is most true or most wise, but what the insiders think the majority of 
voters will on the spur of the moment most like to hear. It means that 
public opinion, instead of being educated constantly by real discussion, 
is forced to chew dry straw. It means that public opinion suffers one 
disappointment after another until you reach the state of mind now 
prevalent throughout the world. 

It is a state of mind which says that politics is a choice between 
tweedledum and tweedledee, that politics is a game for politicians. And 
this feeling has very dangerous consequences. It drives some of the 
people to despair of politics, and from despair to a belief in violence 
and direct action. It drives other people just out of politics altogether 
with a feeling that voting is hardly worth while and that public life is 
no place for them. 

There is no mechanical remedy for all this. You can’t pass a law 
about it. The only thing you can do is by merciless criticism and by 
courageous example to make the cult of the second best extremely un- 
fashionable. 

Now I have argued this question a good deal with politicians, and 
in the end the argument has always come down to one point, which is 
the substance of what I have to say tonight. 

The politician in defending himself usually ends by saying that it is 
his business to serve the people by doing what they want him to do. 
And if he is a shrewd politician he has usually turned upon me and 
said: “You are a newspaper man, aren’t you? Well, why don’t the 
newspapers take such splendid care not to step too much on their 
readers’ toes?” 

And when I have thought of it in that way I felt a little more chari- 
table about the politician’s weaknesses. So what I’ve got to say applies 
to pretty nearly everybody, including perhaps college professors, to 
anybody whose job depends upon votes, public favor, circulation or 
audiences. 

All of us are suffering from a confusion of mind which is, it seems 
to me, the foundation of our Cult of the Second Best. We have two 


94 TweEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


jobs to do. We have to serve the interests of the public. That is one 
thing, and the most important. At the same time we have to make 
what we say or do interesting to the public. 

Now there is a very great difference between the interests of the 
public and what the public finds interesting. A very great difference. 
Take yourselves as an example. You have an enormous interest in 
the proper settlement of the reparation problem. Have you read as 
much about reparations in the last two months as you have read about 
the Kaiser’s wedding and the stranded harem of the Sultan? You 
have a profound interest in the Lausanne Conference, but I am willing 
to wager fewer of you can describe the issues than could describe Prin- 
cess Mary’s wedding gown some months ago. I am confident that more 
of you read about Charlie Chaplin’s reported engagement to Pola Negri, 
and that you thought about it more, than you have thought about 
whether Mr. Pierce Butler is a good appointment to the Supreme Court. 
The Stillman case was discussed a thousand times more than the tariff, 
and I could draw a bigger crowd in New York—Raleigh no doubt is 
different—tomorrow night if I promised to speak about the political 
views of Mary Pickford than I could if I offered to diseuss Mr. Hard- 
ing’s proposal for a ship subsidy. 

So there you are. That’s what all men who depend upon public 
opinion are up against, whether they hold office or run newspapers. 
The interests of the public and what the public finds interesting do 
not coincide. And in my judgment a good sixty or seventy per cent of 
the insincerity, the buncomb and the hokum of public life is not due 
to fear of being punished, but to fear of being dull. We are much less 
afraid that you will lynch us than we are that you will yawn and go 
to sleep. 

Now my theory is that you are tending to yawn and go to sleep any- 
way, that you don’t take the politicians very seriously and that perhaps 
you don’t take what we write in the newspapers so very seriously either. 
That being the case, it seems to me that if everybody started to speak 


his whole mind on public questions the shock and novelty of it might — 


almost make it interesting. At any rate, without taking ourselves too 
heavily, there is such a thing as a public duty, and in a democracy the 
highest intellectual duty is to make your public utterance conform to 
your best private opinion. At the risk of boring the public, at the risk 
of frightening the public, this is the only possible rule. For democracy 
can never work its way through the problems that confront it if the 
best informed opinion isn’t courageously thrown into the discussion. 

It is necessary, therefore, at every turn to combat the notion that the 
public should be given what the public wants. That is an utterly cor- 


—— 


Srate Literary anp Historicat AssocIaTION 95 


rupting rule for politicians, newspapers, professors or parsons. The 
only rule for each of us is to give the public what he thinks the public 
ought to have, and then neither whine nor complain if the public re- 
jects him and goes elsewhere. There is nothing to be gained and every- 
thing to be lost by trying to serve the public by giving them what they 
are supposed to want. We shall serve the public best in the long run 
by giving them what we believe, while admitting in all humility that 
we may be talking nonsense. And when anybody comes to us, be he a 
political boss, or any other kind of boss, and tells us to give the public 
what they want, our reply ought to be, if we don’t believe in that 
thing: If the public wants that, let them go find somebody who will 
give it to them. 

Unless we take that attitude the Cult of the Second Best will flourish 
among us like a green bay tree. Perhaps you will agree. But even if 
you do, you may be asking yourselves what the practical consequences 
would be to men who took such a stand. How would they earn their 
living? That is a fair question, for the consequences of what I’ve been 
preaching tonight would frequently mean that men would resign from 
very pleasant jobs. 

Now I believe this, and I hope you will bear with me while I say it. 
I believe that no man is really fit to hold a public office, or any other 
job which depends upon public favor or has to do with teaching in any 
form, if that man isn’t also capable of earning a living in some other 
way if necessary. That may sound a little strange at first, but I 
believe that there can be no real freedom or sincerity in any public 
service unless men in it are perfectly ready to resign or be fired at any 
time for their opinions. 

You know that one of the first ideals of this Republic was that a 
man should leave his plough in the furrow to do a public service, and 
that he should then return to his plough when the service was done. 
There was profound wisdom in that ideal, for it meant that the public 
servant had no fears for his private comfort. He was not dependent 
upon the public, and therefore he could serve it as a free man. 

This ideal we ought to resurrect. We ought to expect our politicians 
to have some other career to fall back upon besides politics, we ought 
to expect the whole intellectual class, teachers, writers, and the like, to 
learn trades so that they can afford to resign at any time and are, 
therefore, in the most practical sense of the word free men. I promise 
the professors, if there are any present, that their incomes would not be 
reduced much if, having been’ properly educated to the work, they 
suddenly had to turn bricklayer or steamfitter. I can assure them that 
as a writer I have felt ever so much happier and freer since I realized 


96 TweEnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


that if the worst came to the worst I could probably qualify as a taxicab 
driver in New York City. 

At any rate, the way to destroy the Cult of the Second Best seems 
to me this: Give the public not what you think it wants, but what you 
think it needs. Take your chances on being dull and prepare yourself 
to resign at any moment by learning some other useful occupation that 
is not dependent upon public favor. Then you will be a free man, 
and as a free man you can remind the public with perfect safety to 
search its own heart a bit, asking whether the ease with which it is 
frightened is not in some measure responsible also for the second-rate- 
ness of public life. 


Members 


Randolph G. Adams, Durham. 

A. E. Akers, Roanoke Rapids. 

W. H. Albright, Liberty. 

Charles L. Alexander, Charlotte. 

Miss Julia Alexander, Charlotte. 

Miss Violet Alexander, Charlotte. 

Dr. Albert Anderson, Raleigh. 

A. B. Andrews, Raleigh. 

William J. Andrews, Raleigh. 

Mrs. William J. Andrews, Raleigh. 

Miss Augusta Andrews, Raleigh. 

Miss Jane Andrews, Raleigh. 

Miss Martha Andrews, Raleigh. 

W. J. Armfield, High Point. 

Capt. S. A. Ashe, Raleigh. 

Mrs. D. M. Ausley, Statesville. 

BE. F. Aydlett, Elizabeth City. 

Mrs. Henry T. Bahnson, Winston- 
Salem. 

Miss Mattie H. Bailey, Raleigh. 

Miss Martha H. Bailey, Raleigh. 

Mrs. A. L. Baker, Raleigh. 

Rey. M. A. Barber, Raleigh. 

George Gordon Battle, New York. 

Thomas H. Battle, Rocky Mount. 

Dr. S. Westray Battle, Asheville. 

Mrs. S. Westray Battle, Asheville. 

A. P. Bauman, Raleigh. 

BH. C. Beddingfield, Raleigh. 

Miss Mabel Belk, Monroe. 

Rey. Morrison Bethea, Raleigh. 

Mrs. T. W. Bickett, Raleigh. 

Miss Anna M. Blair, Monroe. 

Mrs. Dorian H. Blair, Greensboro. 

J. J. Blair, Raleigh. 

William A. Blair, Winston-Salem. 

Hon. W. M. Bond, Edenton. 

Mrs. H. M. Bonner, Raleigh. 

John M. Booker, Chapel Hill. 

J. D. Boushall, Raleigh. 

John H. Boushall, Raleigh. 

W. K. Boyd, Durham. 

Mrs. C. W. Bradshaw, Greensboro. 

J. C. Braswell, Rocky Mount. 

Charles E. Brewer, Raleigh. 

Col. J. L. Bridgers, Tarboro. 


7 


1921-1922 


Miss Elizabeth N. Briggs, Raleigh. 
W. G. Briggs, Raleigh. 

T. H. Briggs, Raleigh. 

Mrs. T. H. Briggs, Raleigh. 

Dr. Harry L. Brockmann, High Point. 
Mrs. Harry L. Brockmann, High Point. 
L. C. Brogden, Raleigh. 

Mrs. A. L. Brooks, Greensboro. 
Miss Carrie Broughton, Raleigh. 
J. M. Broughton, Raleigh. 

Mrs. W. S. Broughton, Raleigh. 
Frank C. Brown, Durham. 

Joseph G. Brown, Raleigh. 

Col. J. F. Bruton, Wilson. 

Mrs. J. F. Bruton, Wilson. 

J. Dempsey Bullock, Wilson. 

W. P. Bynum, Greensboro. 

Miss Rebecca Cameron, Hillsboro. 
J. O. Carr, Wilmington. 

Gen. Julian S. Carr, Durham. 

D. D. Carroll, Chapel Hill. 

Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh. 
J. L. Chambers, Charlotte. 

Rt. Rev. Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh. 
Mrs. Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh. 
Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr., Raleigh. 
Mrs. Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr., Raleigh. 
Mrs. J. E. Clark, Washington. 
Hon. Walter Clark, Raleigh. 
Heriot Clarkson, Charlotte. 

F. W. Clonts, Wake Forest. 
Collier Cobb, Chapel Hill. 

Mrs. E. M. Cole, Charlotte. 

Mrs. Will X. Coley, Raleigh. 

Miss Jenn W. Coltrane, Concord. 
Hon. H. G. Connor, Wilson. 

Mrs. H. G. Connor, Wilson. 

R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. 
Charles L. Coon, Wilson. 

W. R. Coppedge, Rockingham. 
Mrs. J. H. Cordon, Raleigh. 

J. M. Costner, Raleigh. 

Bruce Cotten, Baltimore, Md. 

Mr. R. R. Cotten, Bruce. 

Mrs. R. R. Cotten, Bruce. 

G. V. Cowper, Kinston. 


98 Twrnty-seconp ANNUAL SESSION 


Miss Clara I. Cox, High Point. 
J. Elwood Cox, High Point. 
Burton Craige, Winston-Salem. 
W. J. Craig, Wilmington. 

W. C. Cram, Raleigh. 

W. C. Cram, Jr., Raleigh. 

Miss Flora Creech, Raleigh. 

E. B. Crow, Raleigh. 

W. E. Daniel, Weldon. 

F, A. Daniels, Goldsboro. 
Josephus Daniels, Raleigh. 
Mrs. Josephus Daniels, Raleigh. 
E. L. Baxter Davidson, Charlotte. 
Miss Penelope Davis, Raleigh. 
Thomas W. Davis, Wilmington. 
Miss Daisy Denson, Raleigh. 

L. A. Denson, Raleigh. 

Miss Sally Dortch, Raleigh. 

J. J. Douglass, Wadesboro. 

Rey. Robert B. Drane, Edenton. 
W. B. Drake, Raleigh. 

Mrs. W. B. Drake, Raleigh. 
Mrs. E. C. Duncan, Raleigh. 

J. H. Eaves, Louisburg. 

F. N. Edgerton, Louisburg. 

J. C. B. Ehbringhaus, Elizabeth City. 
R. O. Everett, Durham. 

W.N. Everett, Raleigh. 

H. E. Faison, Clinton. 

Mrs. I. W. Faison, Charlotte. 
Miss Louise Farmer, Raleigh. 
Rey. J. S. Farmer, Raleigh. 

G. S. Ferguson, Waynesville. 
Mrs. W. J. Ferrall, Raleigh. 

W. P. Few, Durham. 

W. W. Flowers, New York City. 
Mrs. Samuel Fowle, Washington. 


Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem. 


John W. Fries, Winston-Salem. 

H. BE. Fries, Winston-Salem. 

Miss Susan Fulghum, Goldsboro. 
7T. B. Fuller, Durham. 

S. M. Gattis, Hillsboro. 

Dr. J. B. Gibbs, Burnsville. 
William H. Glasson, Durham. 
Mrs. Sallie Clark Graham, Raleigh. 
Hon. W. A. Graham, Raleigh. 
Mrs. William A. Graham, Edenton. 
Daniel L. Grant, Chapel Hill. 
Louis Graves, Chapel Hill. 


T. S. Graves, Chapel Hill. 

James A. Gray, Winston-Salem. 

Mrs. James A. Gray, Winston-Salem. 

H. T. Greenleaf, Elizabeth City. 

Miss Lennie Greenlee, Old Fort. 

R. L. Greenlee, Marion. 

Greensboro Public Library, Greens- 
boro. 

Mrs. B. H. Griffin, Raleigh. 

I. C. Griffin, Shelby. 

Mrs. Gordon Hackett, North Wilkes- 
boro. 

B. F. Hall, Wilmington. 

Miss Susan FE. Hall, Wilmington. 

J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill. 

Ww. C. Hammer, Asheboro. 

Frederic M. Hanes, Winston-Salem. 

Ira M. Hardy, Kinston. 

Frank Harper, Raleigh. 

Cc. J. Harris, Asheville. 

Mrs. J. C. L. Harris, Raleigh. 

T. P. Harrison, Raleigh. 

Miss Esther Hart, Raleigh. 

C. Felix Harvey, Kinston. 

Mrs. C. Felix Harvey, Kinston. 

Ernest Haywood, Raleigh. 

F. P. Haywood, Raleigh. 

Marshall DeLancey Haywood, Raleigh. 

Archibald Henderson, Chapel Hill. 

C. A. Hibbard, Chapel Hill. 

Miss Georgia Hicks, Faison. 

Henry T. Hicks, Raleigh. 

L. P. Hicks, Louisburg. 

T. T. Hicks, Henderson. 

Miss Mattie Higgs, Raleigh. 

Mrs. J. V. Higham, Raleigh. 

D. H. Hill, Raleigh. 

John Sprunt Hill, Durham. 

Miss Pauline Hill, Raleigh. 

Mrs. W. T. Hines, Kinston. 

Mrs. J. W. Hinsdale, Raleigh. 

Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton, Raleigh. 

Herman Harrell Horne, Leonia, N. J. 

J. A. Hoskins, Summerfield. 

George Howe, Chapel Hill. 

E. Vernon Howell, Chapel Hill. 

Miss Irma Hubbard, Memphis, Tenn. 

D. E. Hudgins, Marion. 

Rey. A. B. Hunter, Raleigh. 

Cary J. Hunter, Raleigh. 


— = 


Srare Lirrrary AND HistortcaL AssocraTIon 99 


Mrs. Cary J. Hunter, Raleigh. 
J. Rufus Hunter, Raleigh. 
Miss Louise Irby, Greensboro. 
Mrs. C. L. Ives, New Bern. 
Miss Carrie Jackson, Pittsboro. 


Mrs. Herbert Jackson, Richmond, Va. 


W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. 

Murray James, Raleigh. 

B. S. Jerman, Raleigh. 

A. F. Johnson, Louisburg. 

Charles E. Johnson, Jr., Raleigh. 

Rey. Livingston Johnson, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Edward J. Johnston, Winston- 
Salem. 

Miss Nellie Mae Johnston, Raleigh. 

W.N. Jones, Raleigh. 

J. Y. Joyner, Raleigh. 

Miss Elizabeth A. Kelley, Superior, 
Mont. 

Woodus Kellum, Wilmington. 

Paul S. Kennett, Elon College. 

Horace Kephart, Bryson City. 

B. W. Kilgore, Raleigh. 

R. R. King, Greensboro. 

E. W. Knight, Chapel Hill. 

F. H. Koch, Chapel Hill. 

W. T. Laprade, Durham. 

William Latimer, Wilmington. 

Samuel Lawrence, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Samuel Lawrence, Raleigh. 

J. B. Lewis, Raleigh. 

Miss Nell Battle Lewis, Raleigh. 

Dr. R. H. Lewis, Raleigh. 

Miss Vinton Liddell, Asheville. 

Thomas W. Lingle, Davidson. 

Henry E. Litchford, Richmond, Va. 

Mrs. H. A. London, Pittsboro. 

H. M. London, Raleigh. 

Mrs. H. M. London, Raleigh. 

J. M. McConnell, Davidson. 

J. G. McCormick, Wilmington. 


Mrs. Mamie G. McCubbins, Salisbury. 


Mrs. Herbert McCullers, Clayton. 
F. B. McDowell, Charlotte. 

A. C. McIntosh, Chapel Hill. 

R. L. McMillan, Raleigh. 

Mrs. R. L. McMillan, Raleigh. 
Franklin McNeill, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Franklin McNeill, Raleigh. 
Clement Manly, Winston-Salem. 


W. F. Marshall, Raleigh. 

Julius C. Martin, Asheville. 

H. D. Meyer, Chapel Hill. 

Mrs. J. W. Miller, New York City. 

W. R. Mills, Louisburg. 

Mrs. J. J. Misenheimer, Charlotte. 

Mrs. FB. E. Moffitt, Richmond, Va. 

A. H. Mohn, Louisburg. 

Mrs. A. R. Moore, New Brunswick, N. J. 

Mrs. James P. Moore, Salisbury. 

Rey. W. W. Moore, Richmond, Va. 

John M. Morehead, Charlotte. 

Mrs. John M. Morehead, Charlotte. 

Miss B. A. Morgan, Raleigh. 

Mrs. F. O. Moring, Raleigh. 

Mrs. T. S. Morrison, Asheville. 

Hugh Morson, Raleigh. 3 

Miss Lucile W. Murchison, New York 
City. 

Walter Murphy, Salisbury. 

Frank Nash, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Frank Nash, Raleigh. 

N. C. Newbold, Raleigh. 

Mrs. A. P. Noell, Greensboro. 

Hric Norden, Wilmington. 

Mrs. M. T. Norris, Raleigh. 

George Norwood, Goldsboro. 

Jonas Géttinger, Wilson. 

Hon. Lee S. Overman, Salisbury. 

Miss Mary B. Palmer, Raleigh. 

Haywood Parker, Asheville. 

Mrs. C. M. Parks, Tarboro. 

Miss Rosa Paschal, Greenville, S. C. 

Mrs. S. T. Peace, Henderson. 

D. W. Pearce, Petersburg, Va. 

P. Pearsall, Wilmington. 

C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 

Mrs. W. J. Peele, Raleigh. 

W. M. Person, Louisburg. 

BE. F. Pescud, Raleigh. 

Miss Annie F. Petty, Raleigh. 

William S. Pfohl, Winston-Salem. 

H. N. Pharr, Charlotte. 

Mrs. H. C. Pinnix, Oxford. 

T. M. Pittman, Henderson. 

Clarence Poe, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Clarence Poe, Raleigh. 

Miss Aline Polk, Guilford College. 

Miss Eliza Pool, Raleigh. 

Hubert M. Poteat, Wake Forest. 


100 T wENTY-SECOND 


Miss Ida Poteat, Raleigh. 

W. L. Poteat, Wake Forest. 

Mrs. W. L. Poteat, Wake Forest. 

Mrs. William H. Potter, Boston, Mass. 

E. K. Powe, Durham. 

Mrs. E. K. Powe, Durham. 

W. R. Powell, Wake Forest. 

Mrs. W. R. Powell, Wake Forest. 

Joseph Hyde Pratt, Chapel Hill. 

James H. Ramsey, Salisbury. 

Mrs. R. B. Raney, Raleigh. 

W. T. Reaves, Raleigh. 

Miss Mattie Reese, Raleigh. 

Mrs. W. N. Reynolds, Winston-Salem. 

W. C. Riddick, Raleigh. 

Paul H. Ringer, Asheville. 

J. F. Roache, Wilmington. 

Miss Adaline C. Robinson, Greensboro. 

Miss Lida T. Rodman, Washington. 

Dr. Howard E. Rondthaler, Winston- 
Salem. 

Mrs. Howard E. Rondthaler, Winston- 
Salem. 

Charles Root, Raleigh. 

George Rountree, Wilmington. 

H. A. Royster, Raleigh. 

W. I. Royster, Raleigh. 

William H. Ruffin, Louisburg. 

Robert L. Ryburn, Shelby. 

Miss Helen H. Salls, Oxford. 

W. M. Sanders, Smithfield. 

Dr. Edmund Schwarze, Winston-Salem. 

Miss C. L. Shaffner, Winston-Salem. 

Miss Cornelia Shaw, Davidson. 

Shaw University, Raleigh. 

Edwin F. Shewmake, Davidson. 

Mrs. M. B. Shipp, Raleigh. 

John A. Simpson, Raleigh. 

Col. Harry Skinner, Greenville. 

Benjamin F. Sledd, Wake Forest. 

Hon. J. H. Small, Washington. 

C. Alphonso Smith, Annapolis, Md. 

Charles Lee Smith, Raleigh. 

Ed. Chambers Smith, Raleigh. 

Mrs. Ed. Chambers Smith, Raleigh. 

Rev. G. F. Smith, Louisburg. 

Miss Mary Shannon Smith, New York 
City. 

Miss Mildred Houze Smith, Raleigh. 

W. C. Smith, Greensboro. 


ANNUAL SEssiIon 


Willis Smith, Raleigh. 

D. T. Smithwick, Louisburg. 

Mrs. D. T. Smithwick, Louisburg. 

Mrs. W. O. Spencer, Winston-Salem. 

F. S. Spruill, Rocky Mount. : 

James Sprunt, Wilmington. 

W. H. Sprunt, Wilmington. 

W. P. Stacy, Raleigh. 

J. F. Stanback, Raleigh. 

Mrs. J. F. Stanback, Raleigh. 

Charles M. Stedman, Greensboro. 

George Stephens, Asheville. 

Mrs. F. L. Stevens, Urbana, Ill. 

Cc. L. Stevens, Southport. 

Mrs. CG. I. Stevens, Southport. 

Charles S. Stone, Charlotte. 

W. E. Stone, Raleigh. 

Miss Kate Stronach, Raleigh. 

Edmund Strudwick, Richmond, Va. 

R. CG. Strudwick, Greensboro. 

R. H. Sykes, Durham. 

Mrs. J. F. Taylor, Kinston. 

Walter D. Toy, Chapel Hill. 

EB. J. Tucker, Roxboro. 

Miss Sarah C. Turner, Raleigh. 

Mrs. V. BE. Turner, Raleigh. 

Miss Cornelia Vanderbilt, Biltmore. 

Mrs. John Van Landingham, Charlotte. 

Rey. R. T. Vann, Raleigh. 

Miss Eleanor Vass, Raleigh. 

W. W. Vass, Raleigh. 

Mrs. W. W. Vass, Raleigh. 

Wachovia Historical Society, Winston- 
Salem. 

Mrs. Amos J. Walker, New York City. 

Platt D. Walker, Raleigh. 

Mrs. J. A. Walker, Brownwood, Texas. 

N. W. Walker, Chapel Hill. 

Zebulon V. Walser, Lexington. 

D. L. Ward, New Bern. 

Rev. W. W. Way, Raleigh. 

Miss Aline Weathers, Raleigh. 

James L. Webb, Shelby. 

Mangum Weeks, Washington, D. C. 

Miss Gertrude Weil, Goldsboro. 

Mrs. W. S. West, Raleigh. 

Charles Whedbee, Hertford. 

Miss Julia 8. White, Guilford College. 

Mrs. E. L. Whitehead, Raleigh. 

W. T. Whitsett, Whitsett. 


State Lirerary anp Historrcan AssocraTIoNn 


J. Frank Wilkes, Charlotte. 

M. 8. Willard, Wilmington. 

F. L. Willcox, Florence, S. C. 
Mrs. Marshall Williams, Faison. 


William H. Williamson, Raleigh. 


J. Norman Wills, Greensboro. 
E. E. Wilson, Wake Forest. 
H. V. Wilson, Chapel Hill. 
Louis R. Wilson, Chapel Hill. 
J. W. Winborne, Marion. 

Mrs. J. M. Winfree, Raleigh. 
Francis D. Winston, Windsor. 


George T. Winston, Asheville. 
R. W. Winston, Washington, D. C. 
J. H. Wissler, Moncure. 

W. A. Withers, Raleigh. 

Frank Wood, Edenton. 

J. G. Wood, Edenton. 

W. F. Woodard, Wilson. 

Mrs. W. F. Woodard, Wilson. 
E. E. Wright, New Orleans, La. 
Miss Mary S. Yates, Raleigh. 
Harrison Yelverton, Goldsboro. 
J. R. Young, Raleigh. 


101 


fi 
i 
ial 


zy ee py) 


TENTH BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


December 1, 1922, to 
November 30, 1924 


ge ye ora 


RALEIGH 
EpwarbDs & BROUGHTON PRINTING COMPANY 
Strate PRINTERS 
1925 


| 
' 


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ID. Your, 


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TOe yt 


NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 


Tuomas M. Pittman, Chairman, Henderson 


M. C. S. Nostz, Chapel Hill 
Franx Woop, Edenton 
Heriot Crarxson, Charlotte 
W. N. Everert, Raleigh 


R. B. Hovsz, Secretary, Raleigh 


f? SON gag ea 


i 
) 


ne et tal 


SatT SER erm 


Sw). 


LETTER OF TRANSMISSION | 


To His Excellency, 
Cameron Morrison, 
Governor of North Carolina. 


Sir:—I have the honor to submit herewith for y 
consideration the Biennial Report of the North Caroli 
Commission, for December 1, 1922-November 30, 1924. 

Respectfully, | 


Tuomas M. 


RateicuH, N. C., January, 1925. 


BIENNIAL REPORT 


OF THE 


Secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission 
DECEMBER 1, 1922, TO NOVEMBER 30, 1924 


To Tuomas M. Pittman, Chairman, M. C. S. Nosiz, Franx Woop, 
Heriot Ciarxson, anp W. N. Everett, Commissioners. 


GenTLEMEN :—I have the honor to submit the following report of 
the work of the North Carolina Historical Commission for the period 
December 1, 1922-November 30, 1924. 


ORGANIZATION 


During the period covered by this report there have been changes 
in both the Historical Commission and in the staff employed by it. 

J. Bryan Grimes, Chairman of the Historical Commission, died 
January 11, 1923. To succeed him as commissioner, W. N. Everett 
was appointed by the Governor. 

At a meeting of the Historical Commission, held April 17, 1924, 
Thomas M. Pittman was elected Chairman, W. N. Everett, Vice-chair- 
man, and an executive committee elected, composed of Thomas M. 
Pittman, W. N. Everett, and M. C. S. Noble. All these appoint- 
ments and elections have continued to the date of this report. 

Daniel Harvey Hill, Secretary of the Historical Commission since 
1921, died July 31, 1924. At a meeting of the Historical Commission 
held October 17, 1924, R. B. House was elected to the office of Secretary. 
At this same meeting D. L. Corbitt was elected to the permanent 
staff of the Historical Commission as Calendar Clerk. 

By your direction I publish as an appendix to this report accounts 
of the life and services of J. Bryan Gimes and Daniel Harvey Hill. 


Orricre Force 


During the period covered by this report the following have com- 
posed the permanent staff of the office: 
Secretary, D. H. Hill (to July 31, 1924); R. B. House (October 
17, 1924 ——). 
Legislative Reference Librarian, H. M. London. 
Archivist, R. B. House (to October 17, 1924). 
Collector for Hall of History, Fred A. Olds. [5] 


6 Trentu Brenniat Report 


Restorer of Manuscripts, Mrs. J. M. Winfree. 

iStenographer, Miss Marjory Terrell (through March 31, 1924); 
Miss Sophie D. Busbee (April 1, 1924 Ne 

Calendar Clerk, D. L. Corbitt (since April 1, 1924). 

Archival Clerk, Mrs. W. S. West. 

Reference Clerk, Mrs. W. J. Peele. 

Copyist, Miss Sophie D. Busbee (through March 31, 1924); Mrs. Marie 
Baumgardner (April 1, 1924 De 

Messenger and Mailing Clerk, William Birdsall. 


/ 


The following were employed for temporary special service: 


Assistant Legislative Reference Librarian, R. L. McMillan (January 
and February, 1923; August, 1924). 

Compiler of Revolutionary Roster, Moses Amis (through February 
29, 1924). 


DIVISION OF DOCUMENTS 


CLASSIFICATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF PaprrRs 


The most immediate and practical work of this division is the rough 
classification of all papers received, the careful chronological arrange- 
ment of these papers in permanent form as time permits, and the 
administration of our whole collections for the daily use of students. 
Our collections, totaling over five hundred thousand pieces, have been 
thus kept available. 

In addition to this work, which cannot be set forth in statisties, the 
following specific work has been done: 


Statrt ADMINISTRATION Rercorps 


Two hundred and eighty-one papers were filed in the papers of the 
Secretary of State. Three hundred and seventeen papers were filed in 
the papers of the State Treasurer. Legislative Papers for the years 
1790-1792 were chronologically arranged. Six volumes were arranged 
in the papers of the Attorney-General. Journals of the Literary Board 
1826-1867, and Letterbooks of the Superintendent of Public Instruction 
1868-1906, were arranged. 


County Rezcorps 


Of wills, 2137 were alphabetically arranged in the papers of Chowan, 
Wayne, Tyrrell, Jones, and Rowan Counties. Material from 35 
counties, totaling 203 volumes, cases and bundles, was properly 
arranged. This material is listed in detail under “Accessions” below. 

The whole collection of county records, totaling 1177 cases and 
volumes, was carefully labeled, numbered serially, and indexed by a 
eard finding-list. 


—— 


a 


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: 
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Pil te aie 


N. C. Histortcat Commission z : 


Recorps oF Pustic ScHoot Epucation 


The whole collection of papers was searched for documents on educa- 
tion by M. C. S. Noble in preparation of a documentary history of 
Public School Education, and material found was copied and verified. 


Otp NewsPaPERs 


Approximately 300 photostat copies of North Carolina newspapers 
prior to 1800 were arranged. 


Historica Manuscripts 


920 separate items were arranged in the papers of W. A. Graham, 
Minis Ward, Z. B. Vance, John L. Bridgers, Nathaniel Macon, B. F. 
Gatling, Robert Bingham, Kenneth Raynor, Kiffin Rockwell, Walter 
Clark, John Branch, Hogg, James Iredell, Andrew Jackson, W. W. Hol- 
den, A. D. Murphey, R. W. Winston. and Philemon Hawkins. 


Ust or Recorps 


With the growth of our collections there has been naturally a growing 
use of the records by students. Thousands of letters are handled in the 
office, either directly where time and other work permit, or by reference 
to researchers working professionally in their own right. Two hundred 
people have formally registered in the office and used the records made 
available. Of these 48 were either graduate students working on mono- 
graphs in North Carolina history or investigators who published the 
results of their study here. 


RepatR oF Manuscripts 


Of manuscript, 13,582 sheets have been repaired in various ways as 
follows: 


7782 mounted for binding. 
5183 repaired with paper. 
617 repaired with crepeline. 


In addition to this work numerous books, maps, land grants, and 
other papers have been repaired for immediate use. 
Bryvine 
Thirty-four volumes were bound as follows: 


Governors’ papers, State Series, 1814-1835, Vols. XLIT-LXXI. 
Reports, Chairman County Superintendents Common Schools, 1841-1846. 
Confederate Hospital Records, Vols. I-III. > 


DEscRIPTION AND CALENDARING OF MSS. 


Prior to April 1, 1924, several collections totaling 6000 papers were 
read and described for the Handbook of Manuscripts. On April 1, D. L. 


§ Trento Brenniat Report 


Corbitt began work as special Calendar Clerk on the staff. The em- 
ployment of a specialist to describe, calendar, and index its collections 
is a goal toward which the Historical Commission has been working 
for years. By remarkable diligence Mr. Corbitt has checked over and 
made ready for the press calendars of twelve collections previously pre- 
pared. He has prepared calendars for two more, has read and described 
several thousand pages of manuscript. His most important work, how- 
ever, has been the preparation of a handbook describing county records. 
It numbers eighty-one pages and describes 565 volumes of manuscript. 


PUBLICATIONS 


The following publications have come from the press: 


Bulletin 29, Ninth Biennial Report of the Secretary of the North Carolina 
Historical Commission, December 1920-November 30, 1922, Paper, 39 pp. 

Bulletin 30, Proceedings of the Twenty-second Annual Session of the State 
Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina. Compiled by R. B. 
House, Secretary. Paper, 101 pp. 

The North Carolina Manual for 1923. Compiled and edited by R. B. House. 
Cloth, 508 pp. 

The North Carolina Historical Review. Published quarterly. Volume I, 
Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. 540 pp. 


THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW 


In January 1924 was launched The North Carolina H istorical Review 
as a medium for the publication and discussion of history in North 
Carolina. This magazine is issued quarterly and a price of two dollars 
per year is charged for it. Members of the State Literary and Histori- 
cal Association receive it for the special price of one dollar per year. It 
goes free of charge to institutions with which the Historical Commission 
maintains exchange relations. The magazine has at present a cireula- 
tion of about one thousand copies. 


THE PAPERS OF GOVERNOR BICKETT 


By coéperation with the Printing Commission and the Council of 
State, the Historical Commission published The Public Letters and 
Papers of Thomas Walter Bickett, Governor of North Carolina, 1917- 
1921. Compiled by Santford Martin, edited by R. B. House, Cloth, 
394 pp. 

There are in press at this date, The Papers of John Steele, in two 
volumes, edited by H. M. Wagstaff; and Volume IT of Records of The 
Moravians in North Carolina. 


N. C. Histroricat Commission 9 


PUBLICATIONS IN PREPARATION 


The following documentary works are being made ready for the press: 


J. G. deR. Hamilton is editing the diaries of Randolph Shotwell, and 
he estimates that these will run into four volumes. 

J. G. deR. Hamilton and R. D. W. Connor are editing a history of 
constitutional conventions in North Carolina. 

Walker Barnette, under the supervision of the Department of His- 
tory in the University of North Carolina, is editing a history of political 
conventions in North Carolina. 

William K. Boyd is editing the records of the Lutherans in North 
Carolina and a series of reprints of Eighteenth Century tracts on North 
Carolina. 

The above works will be published at the rate of two volumes a year. 
But chief emphasis is now being laid on getting in shape for the press 
the documentary volumes of “Public School Education in North Caro- 
lina,” by M. C. S. Noble. Mr. Noble, in addition to years of general 
work on this subject, has donated to the undertaking a year’s leave of 
absence obtained from the University of North Carolina, where he is 
dean of the School of Education. 

This program of publication continues the policy of printing private 
papers, but lays special emphasis on a series of topical documentary 
histories now in great demand. 


THE CONFEDERATE WAR HISTORY FUND AND THE WORK 
OF D. H. HILL 


In 1916 the Historical Commission became trustees of a fund donated 
for the preparation of a history of North Carolina in the Civil War. 
This fund of $25,000 was donated by the late Robert H. Ricks of Rocky 
Mount to the North Carolina Confederate Veterans’ Association. Two 
conditions attached to the gift: (1) the late Dr. D. H. Hill was to 
prepare a history of this state’s part in the Civil War; (2) the Histori- 
cal Commission was to supervise his work, pay his salary and office ex- 
penses from the fund, and supervise the publication of the completed 
work from such funds as might be available. Dr. Hill began his work 
July 1, 1916, and continued it diligently till his death in 1924. The 
Ricks Fund, however, was exhausted in 1922, and the Historical Com- 
mission made it possible for Dr. Hill to continue the work till 1924. 

At the time of his death Dr. Hill had completed a military history 
of the war in Virginia from the battle of Bethel to the conclusion of 
the battle of Sharpsburg, several chapters on North Carolina’s blockade 
operations, the Federal invasion of eastern North Carolina, and the 
state’s munitions business. The whole amounts to about one thousand 
pages of manuscript. 


10 Trento BrienniAL Report 


The Historical Commission directed a committee composed of W. N. 
Everett, M. C. S. Noble, and the secretary of the Historical Commission 
to take steps for the publication and sale of this work, and the Historical 
Commission announced itself as ready to continue further work on the 
uncompleted history if sufficient funds could be found. 


ACCESSIONS 


Appitions TO ForMER CoLLECTIONS 


From one to a dozen pieces were added to the following collections of 
private papers: W. A. Graham, Minis Ward, Z. B. Vance, John L. 
Bridgers, Nathaniel Macon, B. F. Gatling, Robert Bingham, Kenneth 
taynor, Kiffin Rockwell, Walter Clark, John Branch, Hogg Papers, 
James Iredell, Andrew Jackson, W. W. Holden, Archibald DeBow Mur- 
phey, R. W. Winston, Philemon Hawkins. 


More numerous and important additions are as follows: 


LEGISLATIVE OATH Book, 1784-1807, MSS. 150 pp. 

TREASURER’S PAPERS, 317 pieces. 

WALTER CLARK Papers, 100 miscellaneous pieces. 

ArroRNEY-GENERAL’S Papers, Five Letter-books, 1877-1903; One volume of 
opinions, 1869-1889. 

W. W. Hoven. From Junius Grimes was received Commission appointing 
Wyatt Outlaw a member of the Union League of America, signed by W. W. 
Holden. 

JOURNALS OF LITERARY BoarD, 1826-1867; LETTER-BOOKS, Superintendent of 
Public Instruction. These were found and brought in by M. C. S. Noble. 

REcorDS oF Ports OF ROANOKE, BATH AND NEWBERN 

Wuts (originals from Secretary of State), 1663-1700. : 

Ww. A. Granam Papers. From Major W. A. Graham were received copies 
of two letters from W. A. Graham to William L. Herndon, on survey of valley 
of the Amazon, 1851, Feb. 15. Paper relating to W. A. Graham as Legislator 
and Governor, undated. Twenty pieces relating to charter of North Carolina 
Railroad and legislative proceedings, 1848-1849. George W. Graham to 
“Willie,” April 27, 1906. 

PuHorostats oF OLp NorrH CaroLina Newspapers, from the Massachusetts 
Historical Society: 


Tue NortH CAROLINA JOURNAL 
Hodge & Wills, Halifax 


Year No. DATE Year No. DaTE 

1792 3 August 1 1792 17 November 7 
6 22 18 14 

7 29 19 21 

1792 8 September 5 20 28 
10 19 21 December 5 

11 26 22 12 

12 October 3 23 19 

13 10 24 26 

14 17 1793 25 January 2 

15 24 26 9 


16 31 27 16 


F « 
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N. C. Hisrortcat Commission 


Year No. DATE 


1793 


1793 


1793 


1794 


28 January 23 


29 30 


Year No. 
1793 30 
31 


Printed by Abraham Hodge 


32 February 20 


33 27 
34 March 6 
35 13 
36 20 
37 27 
38 April 3 
39 10 
40 17 
42 May a 
43 8 
44 15 
45 22 
46 29 
47 June 5 
48 12 
49 19 
50 26 
51 July 3 
52 10 
56 August 7 
57 14 
58 21 
59 28 
60 September 4 
61 11 
64 October 1 
65 9 
66 16 
67 23 


68 October 30 
69 November 6 


70 13 
“aL 20 
72 27 
73 December 4 
74 11 
75 18 
76 25 


77 January 1 
78 or 79, Jan. 8 
or 15—pp. 2 and 3 
80 January 22 


81 29 
82 February 5 
83 12 
84 19 
85 26 
86 March 5 
87 12 
88 19 
89 - 26 
90 April 2 
91 9 
92 16 
93 23 


94 30 


1794 


1794 


1795 


DATE 
February 


May 


June 


July 


August 


September 


October 


November 


December 


January 


February 


March 


April 


May 


June 


11 


12 


YEAR 
1795 


1796 


1797 


Trento Brennrat Report 


No. DATE 
152 June 15 
153 22 
154 29 
155 July 6 
156 13 
157 20 
158 27 
159 August 3 
160 10 
161 ily 
162 24 
163 31 
164 September 7 
165 14 
166 21 
with 2 pp. supplement 
167 28 
168 October 5 
with 2 pp. supplement 
169 12 
170 19 
171 26 
172 November 2 
173 9 
174 16 
175 23 
176 30 
177 December 7 
178 14 
179 21 
180 28 
181 January 11 
189 February 29 
April 4 
Extra, 2 pp. 
199 May 9 
204 June 13 
207 July 4 
208 11 
219 September 26 
230 December 12 
231 19 
232 26 
233 January 2 
234 9 
235 16 
236 23 
237 30 
238 February 6 
239 13 
240 20 
241 PAL 
242 March 6 
243 13 
244 20 
245 27 
247 April 10 
248 Ey 
249 24 
250 May il: 


YEAR 
1797 


1798 


No. DATE 
251 May 8 
252 15 
253 22 
254 29 
255 June 5 
256 12 
257 19 
258 26 
259 July 2 
260 10 
261 17 
262 24 
263 31 
264 August ml 
265 14 
266 21 
267 28 
268 September 4 
269 11 
270 18 
271 25 
272 October 2 
273 9 
274 16 
275 23 
276 30 
277 November 6 
278 13 
279 20 
281 December 4 
282 11 
283 18 
284 25 
285 January i 
286 8 
287 15 
289 29 
290 February 5 
291 12 
292 19 
293 26 
294 March 5 
295 12 
296 19 
297 26 
298 April 2 
299 9 
302 30 
303 May 7 
with extra, 4 pp. 
304 14 
extra only, 4 pp. 
305 21 
306 28 
307 June 4 
with extra, 4 pp. 
309 18 


with 4 pp. extra 
310 25 


N. C. Hisrortcat Commission 13 


Year No. DatTE YEAR No. DATE 
1798 311 July 2 1799 338 January 7 
312 9 339 14 
with 4 pp. extra 340 21 
F 341 28 
ae ae 342 Februar 4 
316 August 6 me ie 
318 20 with 4 pp. extra 
319 27 345 25 
320 September 3 346 March 4 
321 10 with 4 pp. extra 
322 17 347 11 
323 24 349 25 
324 October 1 350 April il 
325 8 352 15 
326 15 with 4 pp. extra 
327 22 353 22 
328 29 with 4 pp. extra 
329 November 5 355 May 6 
330 12 with 4 pp. extra 
331 19 356 13 
332 26 with 4 pp. extra 
333 December 3 357 20 
335 17 1800 408 May 12 
336 24 2 pp. 
337 31 1802 530 September 13 


The following newspapers were found by D. L. Corbitt of the His- 
torical Commission staff. These newspapers are mutilated and in some 
instances can scarcely be read, due to the fact that they had been 
pasted together and formed the backs to Court Records of Tyrrell 
County. It was in this service of over 100 years that they became so 
badly worn. 

The importance of these newspapers lies in the fact that all North 
Carolina histories give the date of the earliest publication of a news- 
paper in the State as 1755. However, R. D. W. Connor in 1920 un- 
earthed a copy of the North Carolina Gazette published in 1753. But 
the finding of these papers sets the date back two more years, and it is 
known that North Carolina did have a newspaper as early as 1751. 
The earliest copy of the North Carolina Gazette now known to be in 
existence is dated November 15, 1751, and is number 15, which makes 
the probable date of the first issue sometime in July 1751. 


14 


Trento Brenniat Report 


These papers have been unpasted, washed, pressed smooth, and covered 
with crepeline, and are ready for use. They are: 


YEAR 
D7 5 
1752 
1752 
1752 


1768 


1793 


1792 


1801 


1752 


1800 


THE NorrtH CAROLINA GAZETTE 
James Davis, Newbern 


No. DATE REMARKS 
15 November 15 The original is crepelined. 
March 6 The original is crepelined, mutilated. 
32 March 13 The original is crepelined, mutilated. 
The original is crepelined, mutilated, pp. 1 
and 2. 
—_ — 21 The original is crepelined, mutilated, pp. 1 
and 2. 


Martin’s NortH CAROLINA GAZETTE 
F. X. Martin, Newbern 


The original is crepelined, mutilated. 


Tue STate GazerTe or NortTH CAROLINA 
Hodge & Wills, Edenton 


337 June 29 The original is crepelined. 


THE Post-ANGEL, OR UNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT 


Printed for Robert Archibald by Joseph Beasley, Edenton 
Vol. I 


28 April 9 4 pp. mutilated 


VIRGINIA GAZETTE 
By William Hunter, Williamsburg 


Mutilated 


Tur NorTH CAROLINA JOURNAL 
By Abraham Hodge, Halifax 


430 October 13 Mutilated, pp. 1 and 2. 


Mars.—The following maps were received: 


Photostat of a new Map of Carolina, by Robert Morden, 1687. 
Photostat of a map of the bundary line between North Carolina and 


Virginia, October, 1726. 


Lands granted by George II to Earl of Granville, March and April, 1746. 


ConFrepERATE Recorps.—The following Confederate records have been 


received. 


A Reminiscence of 1863, pamphlet, 8 pp. From Robert Bingham. 
Confederate War Diary of Captain H. H. Chambers. 
Three Hospital Record Books, 1863-1864, MSS. 350 pp. From ‘Mrs. 


J. S. Wellborn. 


Pe ee ee a Se ee ee ee 


N. C. Histrortcat Commisston 15 


The Currency of the Confederate States, one volume of currency 
mounted and described. From Mrs. Helen Chaffer Howard. 

Confederate Naval Records, Cir. 200. From W. H. McElroy. 

Special Orders Confederate States Military Prison at Salisbury, N. C. 
Copy of original book in MSS. From W. M. Saunders. 

Reminiscence of Confederate Days; State of North Carolina in ac- 
count with F. H. Fries, MSS. From John W. Fries. 

Complete Roster of Men and Boys who enlisted from Nash County, 
MSS. Cir. 150 pp. From Mrs. Tempe W. Holt. 

List of North Carolina Men in Winchester (Va.) Cemetery, MSS. 20 
pp. Acquired by purchase. 


Revo.utionary Recorps.—The following Revolutionary records have 
been received : 


“A Brief Memorandum of John Walker,” etc., MSS. 8 pp. From Miss 
Hannah Patterson Bolles. 

A General Return of the Third N. Cc. Regiment, August 16, 1779. 

Revolutionary Land Warrants, indexed. 

Muster Roll, 1777-1779, MSS. 20 pp. By purchase from Anderson 
Galleries. 


Srcretary or Srate’s Parers.—The following papers from the office 
of the Secretary of State have been received: 


Boundary of North and South Carolina. Reports of Commissioners, 
1805-1815, 1 Vol. MSS. 

Cherokee Lands—Surveyors’ and Commissioners’ Report, 1824. MSS. 
1 Vol. 

311 miscellaneous pieces. 


Wortp War Recorps.—The following World War records have been 
received : 


War Diary of the 120th Infantry, 1918-1919, 1,000 pieces. 

Officers and Enlisted Personnel Headquarters Company, 324th Infan- 
try, pamphlet, 32 pp. From A. D. Cashion. 

Monroe Canteen Register, containing autographs of Marshal Foch, 
Woodrow Wilson, General Pershing. From Mrs. A. L. Monroe. 

Photograph of the 318th Field Artillery Regiment. From J. F. Roach. 

History of the Wake Forest Chapter Red Cross, 1918-1920, MSS. 6 pp. 
From Mrs. J. M. Brewer. 

Letters of Arthur Bluethenthal, 10 pieces. From L. Bluethenthal. 

Sergeant Halyburton, the First American Soldier Captured in the 
World War. By Charles W. Hyams, Dixie Publishing Company, 
Moravian Falls, N. C. 1923, paper, 79 pp. 

Halifax County records, 300 pieces. From Mrs. E. L. Whitehead. 

One hundred pieces relating to Council of Defense. From D. H. Hill. 

Sketch of Kiffin Yates Rockwell, aviator in Escadrille Lafayette. 

Society of the First Division: History of the First Division During 
the World War, 1917-1919. Philadelphia: Winston, 1922, 450 pp. 
By purchase. 

Bach and Hall: The Fourth Division. Its Services and Achievements 
in the World War, 1920. Issued by the Division Association. One 
volume, 369 pp. with maps and illustrations. By purchase. 


16 Trento BIENNIAL REPORT 


Huidekoper: The History of the 33d Division. [Illinois State His- 
torical Library. Four volumes. 

Starlight: Political Record of the 27th Division. New York: Harpers, 
1919, 250 pp. 

George and Cooper: Pictorial History of the Twenty-sixth Division. 
Boston: Ball, 320 pp. 


COUNTY RECORDS 


Fred A. Olds, Collector for the Hall of History, has brought in for 
the period covered by this report the following county papers: 

Country Marertat.—The collection of county material for the arch- 
ives department began in 1917, and has been diligently prosecuted ever 
since. The growth of this section of the archives department has been 
remarkable. In many cases the bound books and loose documents were 
found in very bad condition. This work is now nearly completed, and 
1925 will no doubt see its finish. During the two years ending Decem- 
ber 1, 1924, there were brought in the following county records from 34 
counties : 


CuHatHam. Original will books, 1793-94; 1794-98; 1798-1818; 1817-57. 
Inventories of estates, 1801-12; 1809-12; 1809-22. County Court 
minutes, 1774-79; 1780-85; 1790-94; 1794-99; 1811-16; 1816-22; 1822-27; 
1828-33; 1834-41; 1842-49; 1849-58: 1860-61. Court of Equity minutes, 
1821-39. 

Epcecompe. County Court minutes, 1757-64; 1764-72; 1772-76; 1778- 
84: 1784-90; 1790-92; 1792-94; 1795-97; 1797-1800; 1800-04; 1804-07; 
1807-11; 1811-13; 1813-16; 1816-19; 1819-20; 1820-26; 1826-31; 1831- 
40; 1840-44; 1844-48; 1848-52: 1853-57; 1857-63; 1863-68. Inventories 
of estates, 1783-88; 1788-90; 1790-92; 1798-1800. Crown docket, 
1755-62. Register of marks and brands of cattle, 1732-1809. Execu- 
tion docket, 1769-71. 

FRANKLIN. Marriage bonds (additional). Original wills prior to 
1800. Inventories of estates prior to 1800. Lists of taxable property 
prior to 1800. 

Nasu. County Court minutes, October, 1778; 1779-85; 1787-88; 1791- 
93; 1798-1804; 1804-07; 1807-15; 1815-21; 1824; 1825; 1826-28; 1828- 
31; 1837-43; 1844-51; 1851-64; 1864-68. 

Jackson. County Court minutes, 1853-68. Marriage record book, 
1853-74. 


Witxes. County Court minutes, 1778-85. 
Potk. Marriage bonds. County Court minutes, 1847-48 and 1866-68. 


Asue. County Court minutes. Marriage bonds. Record book, wardens 
of the poor, 1832-55. 


TRANSYLVANIA. County school records. 


Ricumonp. County Court minutes, 1779-86; 1786-92; 1800-04; 1804-08; 
1809-19; 1830-38; 1838-43; 1843-47; 1847-50; 1866-68. Marriage bonds. 


Carreret. Original wills to 1800. 
Onstow. Original wills to 1800. 


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N. C. Histroritcat Commission 17 


CHowan. Original wills, 1723-1799. Marriage bonds, 1740-1868. Inven- 
tories of estates, 1777. Lists of taxable persons, 1766-67; 1798. 
County Court minutes, 1725; 1727-28; 1730; 1732-34; 1736; 1739-45; 
1747; 1749; 1752-59; 1780; 1787; 1788-91; 1791-98; 1795. Deed books, 
1699-1800. Records of Port Roanoke. A 

PERQUIMANS. Original wills (additional), 1751-1800. Court documents 
of Bath, New Bern and Newton (the first name of Wilmington). 
Inventories of estates. Lists of taxable persons; slave sales and 
miscellaneous court papers. Land patents of Chowan, Perquimans, 
Edgecombe and Craven. Assize docket, 1742, at Bath, for Beaufort 
and Hyde. Assize docket, 1742, at Wilmington for New Hanover, 
Onslow and Bladen. Court dockets, 1745-46, for Edgecombe and 
Northampton. Original act of 1746, making New Bern the seat of 
government. 

Roseson. Original wills to 1803. 

WARREN. Original wills to 1800. 

Oranen. Grant book, 1784-95. Original wills, 1757-1800. Register of 
negro cohabitation, 1865-68. 

TYRRELL. Original wills to 1890. County Court minutes, 1758. Deed 
books, 1750-55; 1756-57; 1792-94; 1816-19. Land entry books, 1778- 
80; 1779-81; 1783-91; 1792-96. 

PAsquoTank. Original wills to 1800. Settlements of estates, 1777-98. 
Deed books, 1700-47; 1755-59; 1759-62; 1764-66; 1778-85. 

Beaufort. Deed book, 1784-1806. 

Martin. County Court minutes, 1847. Equity Court minutes, 1809-29. 
Deed book, 1774-87. 

CurgiItucK. County Court minutes, 1851-68. 

Harirax. . Original deed book, 1796-1802. 

Gates. Original wills to 1800. Marriage records, 1851-66. Public 
school records, 1841-61. 

NorTHAMPTON. Original wills to 1800. 

CUMBERLAND. County Court minutes, 1755-59; 1759-65; 1772-76; 1777- 
78; 1778-83. 

MITCHELL. County Court minutes, 1861-68. 

CaBaRRUS. County Court minutes, 1793-97. 

Rowan. Docket of Supreme (Superior) Court, Rowan, Orange and 
Bladen, 1756-70. Original wills, 1753-1820. 

Stokes. County Court minutes, 1790-93; 1793-95; 1795-98; 1798-1800. 
Lists of taxable persons, 1790-93; 1793-95; 1795-98; 1798-1800. Lists 
of taxable persons, 1790-1800; 1801-06. Inventories of estates, 1790- 
1800. Public road records, 1806-21. 

YADKIN. County Court minutes, 1851-58; 1858-68. Marriage bonds, 
1851-68. 

CASWELL. Original wills to 1800. County Court minutes, 1777-81; 
1788-91; 1788-94; 1792; 1797; 1798; 1794; 1801; 1803-06; 1809-13; 
1814-19; 1819-23; 1835-39; 1839-43; 1843-44. Land entries, 1781-84; 
1788-1858. Road book, 1822. 

BLADEN. Deed books (originals), 1734-35; 1792-1804. County Court 
minutes, 1866-67. 

JONES. County Court minutes, 1807-16; 1808-10; 1808-25; 1833-41; 
1841-51; 1851-60; 1860-68. Original wills, 1778-1807. 

Surry. Miscellaneous court papers. 


18 Trento BrenniaL REPORT 


NEW COLLECTIONS 


Avroerapus.—From C. Alphonso Smith the Historical Commission 
received the following autographs: A. L. S. Theodore Roosevelt, De- 
cember 20, 1916; A. L. S., W. S. Porter (O. Henry), February 24, 1908. 

Tur B. F. Stevens Facsrmitus or Manuscripts 1n European ARCH- 
ives Retatine to America, 1773-1783. Twenty-four cases MSS. 
(2,107 pp.) One case of index. This is a famous transcript of older 
records relating to America. It contains some North Carolina material. 

Crvit War Nuwsparers.—From J. K. Little were received the fol- 
lowing newspapers: New York H erald, 1861-1865 (incomplete set) ; 
Boston Liberator, 1860, 1863. 

SoutnerLanp, Hit, anp TURNER GenersLocy.—This is a manu- 
script of 24 pages presented by E. R. Voorhees. 

Pourricat History or THE Conreperacy.—Manuseript of W. A. 
Montgomery. From the family of the late Judge Walter A. Mont- 
gomery was received this work of several hundred pages of manuscript. 
It contains valuable material, the result of several years of research. 

Warxer Papers.—1700-1901 (62 pieces). This collection was given 
to the Commission by the Walker and related families of Wilmington. 

Carry’s Genprat Arras, 1814.—This atlas contains a valuable map 
of North Carolina. 

Rozert F. Hoxe Parers.—From Van Wyck Hoke were received 
fifteen letters of his father, General R. F. Hoke. 

Amerrcan Loyazists’ Paprrs.—In the summer of 1922, R. D. W. 
Connor, as special agent for the Historical Commission, searched for 
North Carolina material in the British Public Records Office and the 
British Museum, and reported his findings to the Historical Commis- 
sion. His list of documents bearing on North Carolina that ought to 
be copied covers over sixty typewritten pages. But Mr. Connor specially 
recommended that certain papers relating to American Loyalists in the 
Audit Office Papers be copied at once because they were rapidly de- 
teriorating. The Historical Commission accordingly arranged with 
B. F. Stevens and Brown of London to begin copying these papers at 
once. This work is still in progress and to date several hundred sheets 
of transcript have been delivered. 


HISTORICAL MARKERS 


Some years ago the Historical Commission erected a marker at the 
grave of Nathaniel Macon. In May 1923, the people of this community 
dedicated Macon’s grave and a large plot of ground around it as a park. 

On June 7, 1923, the Richard Dobbs Spaight Chapter, Daughters of 
the American Revolution at New Bern, unveiled on the court house 
square three handsome bronze tablets to Abner Nash (1780-1781), 


N. C. Histortcatn Commission 19 


Richard Dobbs Spaight (1792-1795), and Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., 
(1835-1836), the three Governors of the State furnished by Craven 
County. The Historical Commission contributed toward these tablets 
and took part in the unveiling exercises. 

In May, 1924, the Raleigh Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolu- 
tion unveiled a marker on the old Ramsgate Road. This tablet was 
erected in codperation with the Historical Commission. 


PORTRAIT OF J. BRYAN GRIMES 


As a gift from the Grimes family, the Historical Commission has 
received an oil portrait of John Bryan Grimes, 1866-1923; Secretary 
of State of North Carolina, 1900-1923; member of the Historical Com- 
mission almost from its beginning in 1903, and Chairman of the Com- 
mission at the time of his death. The portrait is by Louis Freeman of 
Washington, D. C. It was presented to the Historical Commission 
December 6, 1923, in appropriate exercises in connection with the 
twenty-third annual session of the State Literary and Historical As- 
sociation. The address of presentation was made by J. Y. Joyner, 
that of acceptance by W. N. Everett. The portrait now hangs in 
the eastern Hall of History. 


PORTRAIT OF WALTER HINES PAGE 


As a gift to the State of North Carolina from the State Literary and 
Historical Association; the Historical Commission received as custo- 
dian an oil portrait of Walter Hines Page, late Ambassador to the 
Court of St. James. The portrait is by the artist, Philip A. de Lazlo, 
and is a copy of the original by de Lazlo that now hangs in the American 
Embassy in London. The address of presentation was made by 
Frederic M. Hanes, of Winston-Salem; that of acceptance by Governor 
Cameron Morrison. The portrait now hangs in the eastern Hall of 
History. 

HALL OF HISTORY 


I have called your attention to the splendid work of Fred A. Olds in 
bringing in material from the counties. I now call your attention to 
his report as Collector for the Hall of History. He has lectured to 177 
groups of school children from all sections of the State, and shown 
them objects of interest not only in the museum, but in the city of 
Raleigh. In addition he has shown uniform courtesy and considera- 
tion to several thousands of visitors, particularly during the time of 
the State Fair. His report follows: 


20 Trento BrenNIAL REPORT 


REPORT OF THE COLLECTOR FOR THE Hay oF HISTORY 


RaercH, N. C., November 30, 1924. 
Mr. R. B. Houses, Secretary: 


I take pleasure in reporting as follows: 

During the two years now ending, 177 schools or classes in schools, from 
places other than Raleigh, came here and were shown the Hall of History, 
the total number of teachers and pupils being over 5,300, these coming from 

3 counties, some as far east as Chowan, and some as far west as Leaksville. 

All the counties were visited in the two-year period, and talks on history 
were made to schools of all sorts, as well as talks on other subjects to Sun- 
day schools and church congregations, the schools thus visited numbering 392. 
Aid was given in teaching history in the summer schools at Cullowhee and 
Boone (the Appalachian) a week at each place. 

Two hundred special articles were prepared and published, including the 
histories of all the one hundred counties. The laws from 1790 to date 
were carefully abstracted and published. The wills from 1760 to 1800 were 
abstracted and are in type, ready to appear in January or February, 1925.” 

The collections during the two-year period have been both numerous and 
varied, and covered some new fields. Among these was a photograph of the 
only known portrait of General William Lee Davidson. This is placed in 
the notable collection of pictures of persons for whom our counties are 
named—the only collection of the sort possessed by any State. Engravings 
of the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of Clarendon and the Earl of Bath 
are other additions, as are also rare lithographs in color of General Andrew 
Jackson, and William A. Graham as a candidate for Vice-President of the 
United States. 

Among the long list of notable gifts and loans are the following: An 
extremely rare and most interesting map of what is now North Carolina, 
made in 1687, by Robert Morden, London. The original record books of 
Port Roanoke (Edenton) and of Port Brunswick (old Brunswick town, now 
extinct) were gifts, the latter by Dr. James Sprunt. WHarrings of Miss Anna 
Wake, sister-in-law of Governor William Tryon, and of Mrs. John Baptista 
Ashe, who was Miss Montford of Halifax. Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of 
the World, first edition, 1634, London, a gift from Mr. Eric Norden of 
Wilmington. Earrings of Martha Lenoir (12 years old in 1780) made by a 
blacksmith and lent by her great grandson, Mr. Gordon Hackett of North 
Wilkesboro. The music (Swiss) which led to the writing to North Caro- 
lina’s song, “The Old North State Forever.” The certificate of honor for 
75 years of service as a school teacher, presented by Governor Morrison 
and State Superintendent Eugene C. Brooks to Captain George L. Cathey 
of Macon County, soon after his 101st birthday. Thirty-one pen-and-ink 
sketches of notable buildings in Raleigh and Wake County, made by Mrs. 
J. R. Chamberlain and presented by the D. A. R. Oil portraits of Walter 
Hines Page, American Ambassador to Great Britain; of J. Bryan Grimes, 
Secretary of State, and of James I. Metts, of Wilmington, commanding the 
North Carolina Confederate Veterans, are gifts of note. 

Nine oil paintings and eighteen other pictures, illustrating the 30th 
Division of the American Expeditionary Forces ‘in France and Belgium, 
painted on the spot, by Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon S. Hutchins of Argyle 
and Southerland Highlanders, who aided in training that division and then 
served with it, forms an invaluable part of the World War collection. 


1All this is being done privately by Colonel Olds. 


PS ee re ee 


N. C. Histroritcat Commission 21 


Particularly attractive wearing apparel of the period 1800-1861; Philips- 
Battle furniture of Chapel Hill, 1847; a “beaver” hat, 1800; dresses of Mrs. 
W. iH. C. Whiting, Wilmington, 1861. 

Photographs of ‘Big Bertha,” the long-range German cannon, which fired 
on Paris from a point 75 miles distant, and of the first airplane flight by 
the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, N. C., December 17, 1903; also of the 
new U.S. cruiser Raleigh, 1924. 

The sword of Col. Paul F. Faison, 56th Regiment of N. C. State Troops, 
Cc. S. A.; State flag of the 38th Regiment N. C. State Troops, Col. William J. 
Hoke, commanding. 

The decoration of the order of the ‘‘Tower and the Sword,” conferred by 
the Republic of Portugal on the colors of the 120th Infantry (borne by that 
regiment as part of the National Guard) and so placed by Gen. A. J. 
Bowley. 

Photographs of the dedication of the memorial at the grave of Nathaniel 
Macon, in Warren County; that at the grave of Gen. W. D. Pender, C. S. A., 
in the Tarboro Episcopal churchyard, and that at Bath to commemorate 
its 219th anniversary. 

The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, made a gift of a section of the 
“Washington Elm,’ under which George Washington took the oath as com- 
mander-in-chief of the American Army, July 5, 1775. 

A proclamation of the war with Spain, by King George Ist, posted on 
the courthouse of Perquimans County. A splendid set of medals awarded by 
France to be placed on the uniform coat of Kiffin Rockwell, of the Escadrille 
Lafayette. Engraving of the Battle of Southwest Creek near Kinston, 
March 8, 1865. The original act making New Bern the capitol of the 
Province of North Carolina. 

The original lists of Colonial magistrates, 1763-1769; the military land 
warrants to North Carolina soldiers of the Continental Line of the Revo- 
lution; the original wills and the inventories of estates filed with the State, 
1663-1760, were all collected, as were court documents of Bath, New Bern, 
and Newton (the first name of Wilmington); the letters and documents of 
James Glasgow, Secretary of State; very important letters to and from 
James Iredell, Sr., of Edenton; and a letter by Iredell and other Judges, 
1792, to the President of the United States. 

Complete sets of photographs illustrating the Cherokee Indians of North 
Carolina, who became citizens by act of Congress, June, 1924; the Stonewall 
Jackson Training School and of various other institutions of the State, court- 
houses, public highways, schools, etc. 

The manuscript roster of the North Carolina troops of the Continental 
Line, War of the Revolution. 

Respectfully submitted, 
FRED A. OLDs. 


LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE LIBRARY 


Below will be found the report of the Legislative Reference Libra- 
rian. During the period covered by this report the Legislative Reference 
Library has moved into new quarters made available by the Library 
Commission’s having vacated rooms belonging to the Historical Com- 
mission but loaned to the Library Commission until new quarters for 
it in the Agricultural Building were available. The Legislative Libra- 
rian has issued five bulletins and has drafted six hundred and fifty 
bills for members of the General Assembly. 


92, TentH Brenniat Report 


The report follows: 


REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE LIBRARIAN 


RaeicH, N. C., December 1, 1924. 
Mr. R. B. Houses, Secretary, 


North Carolina Historical Commission, 
Raleigh, N. C. 


Dear Sir: I beg to submit herewith a report of the work of the Legislative 
Reference Library from December 1, 1922, to November 30, 1924: 

During the past two years the following publications have been prepared 
and distributed among the various libraries and interested citizens and 
organizations throughout the State: 

1. A booklet of 31 pages giving the official vote by counties for members 
of the Corporation Commission, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 
Judges of the Superior Courts, Congressmen, Solicitors, and Constitutional 
Amendments. A similar booklet covering the 1924 election is now in the 
hands of the printers. 


2. In January, 1923, a Directory of State and County Officials, containing 
71 pages, was issued and a second edition was printed due to the increased 
demand for this useful booklet. - 


3. Bulletin No. 3, 43 pages, containing amendments to the Consolidated 
Statutes enacted at the regular session, 1923. 


4. A synopsis of the game laws of the various counties, containing 35 
pages, was published in the summer of 1923. This booklet was distributed 
among the county officials and a copy sent to every newspaper in the State, 
so that the public might be advised as to the more recent changes in the 
local game laws. 

Following the extra session in 1924, another synopsis was compiled and 
issued, bringing the game laws up to date in the one hundred counties in 
the State. 


5. In the summer of 1923 a Court Calendar, covering the biennium ending 
June 30, 1925, was compiled and published. This, being the only calendar 
of the kind published, was especially helpful to court officials and others 
interested in keeping up with the courts. 

During the fall of 1924 the public was advised as to the nature of the 
proposed Constitutional Amendments to be voted on at the November 
election. 

Soon after the election in November, 1924, a list of the members-elect of 
the next General Assembly was compiled and published, and the following 
letter mailed to each member: 

I am enclosing a list of the members of the incoming Legislature. If 
either your name or address is not correctly given, kindly advise and cor- 
rection will be made in all future publications. During the session of the 
Legislature the office of the Legislative Reference Librarian, on the second 
floor of the Supreme Court Building, will be prepared to draft any bills 
desired and to look up any laws of this or other States on subjects desired. 
I trust you will.call by soon after your arrival in January and let us be 
of service to you in any way possible. 

During the regular session of 1923 over 500 bills were drafted for Legis- 
lators, and during the Extra Session of 1924, 170 bills were similarly pre- 
pared in the Legislative Reference Library. 


ie -. —s- ll. oe e”,hClUl Te 


N. GC. Historica Commission 23 


Many requests have been made by members-elect of the incoming General 
Assembly for information on probable legislation, and the same is being 
given prompt attention. 

At the request of the incoming Governor, there is being compiled available 
data from the various counties as to whether the present court system is 
adequate, economical, and expeditious. 

In April, 1923, the Reference Librarian attended the meeting of the Ameri- 
can Library Association in Hot Springs, Arkansas, conferring with those in 
charge of work similar to that in the Legislative Reference Library. He has 
also attended meetings of the State Library Association. 

During the past two years it may be safely said that the Legislative 
Reference Library has been of increased service to legislators, officials and 
the public generally. Year by year the services afforded are increasing in 
value and helpfulness. 

Respectfully yours, 
H. M. Lonpon, 
Legislative Reference Librarian. 


SUMMARY 


The various and numerous services rendered the public by the His- 
torical Commission staff cannot be adequately summarized. But the 
following analysis of the foregoing report will show the main features 
of the work for the past two years. 

1. A collection of over 500,000 documents was kept available to the 
public. Several thousand inquiries were answered by letter. Two hun- 
dred students were served in the Historical Commission’s rooms. 

2. 8,655 separate pieces were properly filed in various collections. 
220 volumes were properly labeled, filed, and catalogued. The County 
Records collection of 1177 cases and volumes was re-labeled, arranged, 
and catalogued by cards. 

3. The whole collections were searched for documents bearing on 
education, and the documents selected were copied and verified. 

4, 13,582 pieces of manuscript were scientifically repaired and 
mounted. 

5. 34 volumes were bound. 

6. 3 collections, a total of 570 volumes were calendered or described. 

7. 5 publications were issued. 

8. 8 publications are under way. 

9. The North Carolina Historical Review was founded. 

10. 34 collections were added to. 

11. 9 new collections were secured and arranged. 

12. Work was begun on a new series of the Colonial Records of 
North Carolina. 

13. 4 historical markers were erected. 

14. Material was furnished for use in 48 monographs or serious 
studies on North Carolina history. 


24 ; TrentH Brenniat Report 


the Hall of History and received lectures on North Carolina. 
16. Numerous objects of value and interest were added to th 
of History. 
17. In addition to lecturing in all parts of the State, the Coll 
for the Hall of History wrote 200 articles and abstracted thousan 
records otherwise inaccessible. 
18. 5 publications were issued by the legislative Reference Lib 
and 670 bills were drafted. 
Respectfully submitted, 

Re House! : 


RALEIGH, N. C., December 1, 1924. 


N. OC. Hisrortcat Commission 25 


APPENDIX 


(By direction of the Historical Commission the following remarks of 
James Y. Joyner on J. Bryan Grimes, and the sketch of D. H. Hill are 
printed: ) 


JOHN BRYAN GRIMES 


Born June, 1868, in Raleigh, reared at Grimesland, Pitt County, 
educated at several of the leading private academies of the State and at 
the University of North Carolina, son of one of the most distinguished 
Generals of the Confederacy, descended on his mother’s side from one 
of the most intellectual and distinguished families of the State, elected 
in 1900 Secretary of State of North Carolina, filling this high office 
with rare efficiency, acceptability and popularity until his death. Chair- 
man of the State Historical Commission, Trustee of the University of 
North Carolina, member of its Executive Committee, active and in- 
fluential member of various farmers’ organizations, the Grange, the Al- 
liance, the Farmers Union, the cotton and tobacco codperative market- 
ing associations, in the latter of which he was a director, member of the 
following fraternal organizations: Masons, Knights of Phythias, Junior 
Order United American Mechanics, Sons of the Revolution. Died Jan- 
uary 11, 1923. : 

Such is the brief statement of the principal incidents in the outward 
life of J. Bryan Grimes. It is indicative of the wide range of his in- 
terest and activites in the civic, agricultural and political life of his 
State. It is the character of a man that creates his life history. He 
lived as he did because he was what he was. I have chosen, therefore, 
to devote most of the brief time allotted for the presentation of his por- 
trait to a sympathetic contemplation of his character. With us, his 
friends, gathered here to honor his memory and mourn his loss, it is 
the memory of what he was that lives and lasts to dull the edge of our 
sorrow at his untimely taking off in the prime of vigorous middle age, 
in the midst of a useful life that affords a measure of compensation for 
the loss of communion with him in the flesh till in the fulfillment of our 
Father’s promise, we shall meet and know him again where parting is 
no more. It is the memory of what he was to us who were privileged to 
call him father, husband, brother, friend, and who loved him for what 
he was, that shall shine like a star upon our pathway to guide, inspire 
and comfort through the long or may be short night of our earthly sepa- 
ration. 

He was a patriot, loving his State and his people with a passionate 
love that ever moved him to tireless and unselfish service of them. I 
have known few men in my day who loved his State as well and none 
who loyed her more—none who found more genuine joy in her service. 


26 Trento Brenniat Report 


He was proud of her history and jealous of her honor, quick and eager to 
defend both. To him North Carolina was a sort of personified mother 
whom he loved with a tenderness and a loyalty akin to that which a true 
son cherishes for his mother in the flesh. He was a zealous student of 
North Carolina history and a recognized authority on it. Few men of 
his or former generations have acquired such an accurate and compre 
hensive knowledge of it. He had accumulated a large and valuable col- 
lection of books and pamphlets pertaining to its history—probably one 
of the largest and most valuable private collections in the State. It was 
a joy to travel with him through the historical sections of the State and 
listen to his interesting stories of men and places. He was largely re- 
sponsible for the establishment of the State Historical Commission and 
as its chairman for many years was deeply interested and very influen- 
tial in directing and planning its splendid activities and in securing ap- 
propriations for its work. This was a labor of love with him and an 


expression of love of his State. He gave freely of his time and thought 


to it. \ 
For twenty-two years he served as Secretary of State. As a public 


officer he was wonderfully efficient and was the incarnation of courtesy — 


and accommodation. The moment one, even a stranger, stepped into 


his office and into his presence, he unconsciously felt that he was in an © 
atmosphere of efficiency and courtesy. He reorganized, greatly ex- 


panded, and systematized almost perfectly the work of his office. He 
possessed the highest and rarest sort of executive ability—the sort that 
gets things done promptly and efficiently without noise, confusion or 
friction. He was painstaking and thorough in all his work. He had 
the gift of securing team work, of getting the best out of his employees 
by his own example and high ideals of public service, by his kindly 
consideration, sympathetic interest and appreciative encouragement, 
by inspiring in them a pride in their work, a love of it, and a sense of 
loyalty to him and it. The constantly increasing work of his great office 
was so well planned and executed that it moved like clock-work. 

He was a man of strong convictions, firm and tenacious of them, but 
never dogmatic or intolerant in the assertion of them. He was a man 
of rare physical, intellectual and moral courage. He had an eye and 
a soul that quailed not before power, position, wealth, or danger. He 
was wise in counsel and his associates in public and private life sought 
his advice and respected and relied upon it. He was equally wise in 
taking counsel. He never obtruded his views or advice upon others. He 
welcomed and often sought the views and advice of friends. He was 
careful and chary in the choice of his intimate friends. He never wore 


his heart on his sleeve. Like most strong choice spirits, he was re 


served. He opened his heart and his mind to his intimate friends, 
trusted them implicitly and was implicitly trusted by them. He grappled 
them to him with hooks of steel and loved and served them with a loyalty 
that won and held their love and loyalty. 


idea 


N. C. Historica, Commission Hl 


Confederate veterans, comrades of his soldier-father, whose memory 
he revered, were the constant objects of his loving consideration. He 
lost no opportunity to aid with pen and purse, with influence and per- 
sonal work’ every effort and plan to lighten the load and brighten the 
pathway of these old heroes. 

He was a rare and fine combination of aristocrat and democrat. 
With a just pride in his honorable ancestry, reaching in an unbroken 
line to the English nobility of the “Middle Ages” and including many 
of the distinguished and dominant men in war and peace in every per- 
iod of his State’s history, he never paraded it, rarely alluded to it, and 
was without semblance or suggestion of vanity or snobbery on account 
of it. He possessed many of the virtues and few, if any, of the faults 
of the aristocrat and cavalier. In the finest sense he was broadly demo- 
eratic in feeling and sympathy and in the ordering of his life, public and 
private. In prince and peasant he saw the man, and the humblest and 
the highest received like consideration at his hands. 

A more loyal friend, I have not known; a more devoted husband, 
father, son, brother. He was my friend, faithful and true. He is gone! 
But the memory of that friendship remains. I would not exchange it 
for all the gold of “Ophir or all the wealth of India.” 

It is well, it is fitting, that the portrait of J. Bryan Grimes should be 
first to be hung in the Hall of History by the request of the Historica: 
Commission, of which he was the able chairman for so many years, for 
the establishment of which he was largely responsible, and in the work 
of which he was so actively and deeply interested. No son of North 
Carolina has loved her history more, made more valuable contributiors 
to its preservation, or been more active and successful in securing just 
recognition and appreciation of it at home and abroad. Measured by 
the highest standards of personal worth, private citizenship, and public 
service, J. Bryan Grimes was the peer of any man of our generation, 
and we honor ourselves in assigning’ him a place in North Carolina’s 
“Hall of Fame” by placing his portrait in this Hall of History. 

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of his family I have the honor and the 
pleasure to present to your Commission in compliance with its request 
this portrait of J. Bryan Grimes. 

May succeeding generations of the North Carolina youth passing by 
his portrait hanging here pause to pay a reverent tribute to one who © 
loved his State and served her well, be stimulated to study his life and 
work, to emulate his virtues, and to imitate his example. 


28 TentH Brenniat Report 


DANIEL HARVEY HILL 


On July 31, 1924, the Secretary of the Historical Commission, | 
Harvey Hill, died. He was the son of Lieutenant-General Daniel 
vey Hill (Confederate States Army) and Isabella (Morrison) Hill, 
born January 15, 1859, at Davidson College, N. C., and educated at 
institution. From 1880 to 1908, he was a teacher of English, first 
Georgia Military and Agricultural College till 1907, and second 
North Carolina College of Agriculture and Engineering till 1908. 
1908 till 1916 he was president of this latter institution. But in J: 
1916 he resigned from the presidency of this institution to accede to 
request of the State Confederate Veterans Association to write, on 
Ricks Foundation, a history of North Carolina in the Civil War. 
continued on this occupation till his death. His completed work 
prises a military history of the war in Virginia from Bethel to S) 
burg, with supplementary chapters on the invasion of eastern 
Carolina, and the blockade and munitions business of North Carol 
In addition to this work he wrote: General Greene’s Retreat, Rale 
1901; Agriculture for Beginners, Boston: 1903; Hill Readers, Bos 
1907; Young People’s History of North Carolina, Charlotte: 1 
Corn Book, Boston: 1920; and also numerous essays and stud: 
North Carolina history. He was a member of the North Carolina ] 
torical Commission, 1904-1921, Secretary of the Historical Commi 
1921 till his death, Chairman of the State Council of Defense during 
World War, President of the North Carolina Teachers Assembly, 
of the North Carolina Folk Lore Society, 1920, of the State Li 
and Historical Association, 1921, . 


HANDBOOK OF COUNTY REGORDS 


DEPOSITED WITH THE 


NORTH CAROLINA 
HISTORICAL COMMISSION 


A REPORT 
BY 


D. L. CORBITT, CALENDAR CLERK 


Plesiyz 


RALEIGH 
EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING COMPANY 
SratTp PRINTERS 
1925 


NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 


Tuomas M. Pittman, Chairman, Henderson 


M. C. S. Nostz, Chapel Hill 
Frank Woop, Edenton 
Herriot Crarxson, Raleigh 
W. N. Everett, Raleigh 


R. B. Hovss, Secretary, Raleigh 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


In 1916 the North Carolina Historical Commission began systematic- 
ally to collect the non-current records in the several counties. It has 
been literally a work of rescuing valuable material from precarious 
situations. Fire, water, vermin, thieves—in fact all the enemies of 
archives have preyed on these county records, and there are conse- 
quently many and serious gaps in them. 

There is nothing mandatory in the law permitting counties to 
deposit their non-current records with the Historical Commission. 
Their action in this matter is entirely discretionary. Consequently, 
some counties have preferred as yet to retain custody of their records. 
But the fact that so many counties have thus enabled the Historical 
Commission to centralize this material and care for it is at once 
evidence of forethought and historical mindedness on the part of their 
officials, and of the tact and efficiency of Fred A. Olds, who did the 
work of finding and collecting this material. 

In 1924 the Historical Commission employed D. L. Corbitt to list, 
describe, and calendar its collections. So rapidly had the collection of 
county records grown, and so constantly had it been in use, that it 
was deemed necessary to issue this report as the first step in describing 
the total collections. 

Persons interested in records of the counties may, by reading this 
report, know with some degree of definiteness whether or not a trip to 
Raleigh will give them access to the material desired. There is listed 
in it only the material which is actually on the shelves of the Historical 
Commission, and which can be had for examination in the rooms of 
the Historical Commission upon application to the persons in charge, 
except when some of it may be temporarily withdrawn for repairs. 

Researchers are welcomed to the rooms of the Historical Commis- 
sion, and correspondence concerning this material is invited. However, 
the staff of the Historical Commission is too limited to permit it to 
engage in private researches, especially those pertaining to genealogy. 
Unless questions of this nature can be readily answered, it is the policy 
to refer them to competent persons in the city of Raleigh, who will 
arrange terms and prosecute the research independently. 

R. B. House, 
Secretary 


Plisyg 


COUNTIES IN BRIEF 


The following is a list! of the counties in the State; the date of the 
formation of each; and the names of the county or counties from which 
each was formed. The list includes one hundred and, four counties, but 
there are now only one hundred counties. Four were abolished and 
others made from them. 


Date of 

County Formation County from Which Formed 
Alamance 1849 Orange 
Alexander 1847 Iredell, Caldwell, Wilkes 
Alleghany 1859 Ashe 
Anson 1749 Bladen 
Ashe 1799 Wilkes 
Avery 1911 Mitchell, Watauga, Caldwell 
Beaufort 1705 Bath 
Bertie 1722 Bath 
Bladen 1734 Bath 
Brunswick 1764 New Hanover, Bladen 
Buncombe 1791 Burke, Rutherford 
Burke 1777 Rowan 
Bute2 1764 Granville 
Cabarrus 1792 Mecklenburg 
Caldwell 1841 Burke, Wilkes 
Camden 1777. Pasquotank 
Carteret 1722 Bath 
Caswell 1777. Orange 
Catawba 1842 Lincoln 
Chatham 1770 Orange 
Cherokee 1839 Macon 
Chowan 1672 Albemarle 
Clay 1861 Cherokee 
Cleveland 1841 Rutherford, Lincoln 
Columbus 1808 Bladen, Brunswick 
Craven 21712 Bath 
Cumberland 1753 Bladen 
Currituck 1672 Albemarle 
Dare 1870 Currituck, Tyrrell, Hyde 
Davidson 1822 Rowan 
Davie 1836 Rowan 
Dobbs4* 1758 Johnston 
Duplin 1749 New Hanover 
Durham 1881 Orange, Wake 
Edgecombe 1735 Bertie 


1 Data taken from the North Carolina Manual 1913. 

2 Bute was abolished and Franklin and Warren were formed from it in 1779. 
2This date is given as “about 1712.” 

4Dobbs was abolished in 1791 and other counties formed from it. 

* Taken from Wheeler's map of the formation of the counties. 


6 Nortn Carotina Historicat Commission 


Date of 
County Formation County from Which Formed 
Forsyth 1849 Stokes 
Franklin 1779 Bute 
Gaston 1845 Lincoln 
Gates 1778 Chowan, Perquimans, Hertford 
Glasgow't+ 1791 Dobbs 
Graham 1872 Cherokee 
Granville 1746 Edgecombe 
Greene 1799 Glasgow 
Guilford 1770 Rowan, Orange 
Halifax 1758 Edgecombe 
Harnett 1855 Cumberland 
Haywood 1808 Buncombe 
Henderson 1838 Buncombe 
Hertford 1759 Chowan, Bertie, Northampton 
Hoke 1911 Cumberland, Robeson 
Hyde® 1705 Bath 
Iredell 178g Rowan 
Jackson 1851 Haywood, Macon 
Johnston 1746 Craven 
Jones 1778 Craven 
Lee 1907. Chatham, Moore 
Lenoir 1791 Dobbs, Craven 
Lincoln 1779 ‘Tryon 
Macon 1828 Haywood 
Madison 1851 Buncombe, Yancey 
Martin 1774 Halifax, Tyrrell 
McDowell 1842 Rutherford, Burke 
Mecklenburg 1762 . Anson 
Mitchell 1861 Yancey, Watauga, Caldwell, Burke, Me 
4 Dowell 
Montgomery 1778 Anson 
Moore 1784 Cumberland 
Nash 1777 Edgecombe 
New Hanover 1729 Bath 
Northampton 1741 Bertie 
Onslow 1734 Bath 
Orange 1753 Granville, Johnston, Bladen 
Pamlico 1872 Craven, Beaufort 
Pasquotank 1672 Albemarle 
Pender 1875 New Hanover 
Perquimans 1672 Albemarle 
Person 1791 Caswell 
Pitt 1760 Beaufort 
Polk 1855 Rutherford, Henderson 
Randolph 1779 Guilford 
Richmond 1779 Anson 
Robeson 1786 Bladen 
Rockingham 1785 Guilford 
Rowan 1753 Anson 
Rutherford 1779 ‘Tryon, Burke 


Sampson 1784 Duplin, New Hanover 


5 Glasgow was abolished in 1799 and Greene was made from it. 
® Called Wickham until about 1712. 
j Taken from Wheeler’s map of the formation of the counties. 


County 
Scotland 
Stanly 
Stokes 
Surry 
Swain 
Transylvania 
Tryon7i 
Tyrrell 
Union 
Vance 
Wake 
Warren 
Washington 
Watauga 
Wayne 
Wilkes 
Wilson 
Yadkin 
Yancey 


Hanpsoox oF County Recorps if 


Date of 
Formation 
1899 
1841 
1798 
1770 
1871 
1861 
1768 
1729 
1842 
1881 
1770 
1779 
LS 
1849 
1779 
1777 
1855 
1850 
1833 


County from Which Formed 
Richmond 

Montgomery 

Surry 

Rowan 

Jackson, Macon 

Henderson, Jackson 
Mecklenburg 

Albemarle 

Anson, Mecklenburg 

Granville, Warren, Franklin 
Johnston, Cumberland, Orange 
Bute 

Tyrrell 

Ashe, Wilkes, Caldwell, Yancey 
Dobbs, Craven 

Surry, Burke 

Edgecombe, Nash, Johnston, Wayne 
Surry 

Burke, Buncombe 


There are forty-one counties in the state from which there is no 
material available in the archives of the Historical Commission. Some 
of these counties have been so unfortunate as to lose by fire or during 
the Civil War all of their records, while some of them are so young 
as to have no records except those which are now in use in the county 


seat. 


The following is the list of the counties from which there is material 
available. A fuller description of this material is given elsewhere in 


this report. 


County 
Ashe 
Beaufort 
Bertie 
Brunswick 
Buncombe 
Burke 
Bute 


Cabarrus 
Camden 


Carteret 
Caswell 
Chatham 
Chowan 
Columbus 


County Seat County County Seat 
Jefferson Cumberland Fayetteville 
Washington Currituck Currituck Court- 
Windsor house 
Southport Duplin Kenansville 
Asheville Edgecombe Tarboro 
Morganton Franklin Louisburg 
Buffaloe Gates Gatesville 
(abolished in Granville Oxford 
1778) Halifax Halifax 
Concord Hertford Winton 
Camden Court- Hyde Swan Quarter 
house Jackson Sylva 
Beaufort Jones Trenton 
Yanceyville Lenoir Kinston 
Pittsboro Martin Williamston 
Edenton Mitchell Bakersville 
Whiteville Nash Nashville 


7 Tryon was abolished 1799 and other counties made from it. 


t Taken from Wheeler’s map of the formation of the counties. 


8 Norts Carozina Histortcat Commission 


County 

New Hanover 
Northampton 
Onslow 
Orange 
Pasquotank 
Perquimans 
Pitt 

Polk 
Richmond 
Robeson 


County Seat 
Wilmington 
Jackson 
Jacksonville 
Hillsboro 
Elizabeth City 
Hertford 
Greenville 
Columbus 
Rockingham 
Lumberton 


County 
Rockingham 
Rowan 
Rutherford 
Stokes 
Tyrrell 
Warren 
Washington 
Wayne 
Wilkes 
Yadkin 


County Seat 
Wentworth 
Salisbury 
Rutherfordton 
Danbury 
Columbia 
Warrenton 
Plymouth 
Goldsboro 
Wilkesboro 
Yadkinville 


The following is a list of the counties from which there is no material 
in the collections of the Historical Commission. 


Alamance 
Alexander 
Alleghany 
Anson 
Avery 
Bladen 
Caldwell 
Catawba 
Cherokee 
Clay 
Cleveland 
Dare 
Davidson 
Davie 
Durham 
Forsyth 
Gaston 
Graham 
Greene 
Harnett 
Henderson 


Graham 
Taylorsville 
Sparta 
Wadesboro 
Elk Park 
Elizabethtown 
Lenoir 
Newton 
Murphy 
Hayesville 
Shelby 
Manteo 
Lexington 
Mocksville 
Durham 
Winston-Salem 
Dallas 
Robbinsville 
Snow Hill 
Lillington 
Hendersonville 


Hoke 
Iredell 
Lee 
Lincoln 
Macon 
Madison 
Montgomery 
Moore 
Pamlico 
Pender 
Sampson 
Scotland 
Stanly 
Surry 
Swain 
Transylvania 
Union 
Vance 
Watauga 
Wilson 
Yancey 


Raeford 
Statesville 
Sanford 
Lincolnton 
Franklin 
Marshall 
Troy 
Carthage 
Bayboro 
Burgaw 
Clinton 
Laurinburg 
Albemarle 
Dobson 
Bryson City 
Brevard 
Monroe 
Henderson 
Boone 
Wilson 
Burnsville 


The marriage bonds from the following counties are open to the 
public for use in the rooms of the Historical Commission but there is 
no other material on these counties: 


County 
Craven 
Guilford 
Haywood 
Johnston 
McDowell 
Mecklenburg 
Person 
Randolph 
Wake 


County Seat 
New Bern 
Greensboro 
Waynesville 
Smithfield 
Marion 
Charlotte 
Roxboro 
Ashboro 
Raleigh 


Number of Boxes 


24 
26 
10 
21 

4 
18 
10 
26 
38 


All of these marriage bonds are arranged alphabetically so as to 


eliminate useless searching as much as possible. 


ve 


COUNTY RECORDS 


ASHE COUNTY 


Ashe County was formed from Wilkes in 1799. Was named in honor of 
Samuel Ashe, who was at one time Governor of North Carolina. 


There is very little material on Ashe County. What material there 
is consists of one book of Records of Wardens for the poor, including 
the years from 1832 to 1855, and two volumes of County Court Minutes, 
the first of which dates from 1806 to 1821, and the second from 1821 
to 1826. There are a few marriage bonds dating from 1828 to 1889. 

The Court Minutes are more valuable than the Records of the War 
dens for the poor. The Justices of the Peace who held the Quarter 
Sessions are listed for each term, as well as the regular and grand 
jurors. These books contain such material as the appointment of con- 
stables of the county; records of all deeds being acknowledged; records 
of summonses; records of court proceedings with some judgments; 
powers of attorney; inventories of estates; records of petitions and 
exparte proceedings (division of land to heirs of a deceased person) ; 
and a few wills. It is quite evident that the books served in some cases 
the purposes of both the register of deeds (as they contain material 
belonging in the office of the register of deeds) and as a record for the 
courts. They contain all cases and records of deeds filed from 1806 to 
1826. : 

The Wardens’ Records give the names of the various wardens and 
the names of those to whom funds were paid, together with the amount. 
Some wardens were appointed to do one specific thing and no more, 
while others were to feed and clothe certain people, and still others 
were to have complete responsibility for persons assigned to their care, 
and in almost every case it was for a definite period. 

The marriage bonds are arranged alphabetically. 


BEAUFORT COUNTY 


Beaufort County was formed from Bath in 1705, and was named for Henry 
Somerset, Duke of Beaufort. 


There is not much material available on this county. One minute 
book dating from 1756 to 1761, one book of the list of taxables for the 
year 1784, a book of deeds for the years 1795-1807, and an abstract of 
wills form the entire lot. 

The minute book contains such material as follows: Acknowledg- 
ments of deeds; acknowledgments of inventories; powers of attorney; 


10 Nortx OCarorrna Historrocat Commission 


records of flesh marks and brands; acknowledgments of options; records 
of apprenticing minors; acknowledgments of deeds of gifts; granting 
licenses for attorneys; probations of wills; records of appointments of 
executors and administrators; acknowledgments of bills of sale of 
negroes; and acknowledgments of deeds of surrender. 

The List of Taxables contains the names of the freeholders and the 
valuation of the listed property for the several districts, and then 
there is a recapitulation of the whole taxable property, which amounted 
to £211,713.10.1. (This amount was for year 1784.) 

The deed book contains deeds, deeds of trust; and bills of sale for the 
years 1795-1807, which are copied from the originals, 

There are no marriage bonds from Beaufort County. 


BERTIE COUNTY 


Bertie County was formed from Albemarle in 1722, being named for John 
and James Bertie, two of the Lords Proprietors, who together owned one- 
eighth of Carolina. 


There is a fairly good collection of material from this county, which 
includes one Crown Docket, 16 volumes of Court Minutes, one volume 
of land entries, and the marriage bonds. 

The Crown Docket dates from 1762 to 1775, and contains the record 
of cases, of which the following is an example: 


he ane Endictment Defendant appeared and submitted himself to 
16 vs. for Executed i 
the court. Fined £5 
Thomas Pearce Contempt 


ee Se 

From this docket it is found that in those days a great many cases 
were continued, and also that many defendants failed to appear. 

The Court Minutes are contained in sixteen volumes, of various sizes. 
These records date from the year 1767 to 1868. 

In the first volume of the County Court Minutes 1767 to 1772, there 


is a list of the Justices of the Peace, and the regular and grand jurors | 


for each term of the Pleas and Quarter Sessions of Court. The book 
contains acknowledgments of deeds; appointments of overseers of roads; 
orders for apprenticing minors; orders for the Sheriffs to make returns 
of accounts; orders for auditing the accounts of deceased men ; proba- 
tions of wills; appointments of constables; powers of attorney; acknowl- 
edgments of bills of sales; orders for recording inventories of the 
estates of deceased persons; orders for appointments of guardians; 
orders for sale of property of orphans; security bonds; orders for men 
to work the roads, ete. There seem to be no records of court trials and, 
decisions in this volume. 


a 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps a hit 


Volume two, 1772 to 1777, contains practically the same kind of 
material as described above. There are, however, one or two 
court trials recorded in this book, but there seems to be no judgments. 

Volume three, 1778 to 1792, contains material of the same nature 
and, in addition, the establishment and recording of flesh marks, ap- 
pointment of Sheriffs, ete. From this book the following was taken 
from the May Term 1780: 


Ordered the tavern rates are as follows Viz. For a hot dinner of good 
provisions twelve dollars and a half. Breakfast of tea or coffee bread and 
butter six dollars. Supper of meat eight dollars, if coffee or tea six dollars, 
for a gill of good west India rum ten dollars, country brandy whiskey and 
toffy five dollars per gill for lodging and night two dollars for storage for 
horses for twenty-four hours four dollars corn twelve shillings per quart, 
fodder or hay sufficient for a bait for a horse twenty four shillings. 


Other court records in the volume are: Order for Sheriff to mend 
the gaol; cases tried and judgments rendered; releasing a cripple from 
poll tax; the names of the districts of the Justices of the Peace to list 
the taxable property in each. 

Volume four, 1793 to 1801, is a continuation of the preceding mate- 
rial. However, there is a record in this book of the court’s appointing 
a County Surveyor, special commissioners to receive roads for public 
use, and others to make private examination of wives for the proper 
execution of deeds. In the last part of this volume is given the court 
cases and the number of the jury opposite each case. 

The volume of 1803 is small and contains very little material. The 
material is of the same nature as that of the preceding volumes. 

From 1803 to 1868 there are nine volumes which are dated as follows: 
1803-1805, 1805-1807, 1808-1813, 1813-1818, 1818-1822, 1822-1832, 
1832-1841, 1842-1853, 1853-1867, and 1868. All these volumes contain 
such material in general as that described. There are, however, records 
of various petitions such as petitions for dowers; petitions for parti- 
tions of land); petitions for year’s provisions for widows; various se- 
curity bonds given in full; orders given for funds to be paid for the 
building of bridges; orders for the register of deeds to be paid. (It 
appears from these books that the court by 1820 was exercising the 
function of the present day county commissioners and auditors.) The 
last volume contains the proceedings of May Term 1868. 

The volume of County Court Minutes dated 1842-1843 contains the 
court proceedings from February Term 1842 to and including the Feb- 
ruary Term 1843. But in the back of this volume is a record of a bond 
issue dated January 1, 1872. 

There was one series of bonds of $20 denomination which num- 
bered consecutively from 1 to 220; there was another series of $100 
denomination which ran consecutively from 1 to 130; and the coupons 
of all were due at different times between January 1, 1873, and Janu- 


12 Norra Carorina Historrcat Commission 


ary 1, 1883. These bonds bore six per cent interest and were issued 
under Act of —______, (The Act* was omitted). The names of 
the bondholders are listed. 

There is also a book of land entries dating from May 13, 1778 to 
February 14, 1781, and it contains 275 entries. 

The marriage bonds are arranged alphabetically. 


BRUNSWICK COUNTY 


Brunswick County was formed in 1764 from New Hanover and Bladen. 
Was named in honor of the famous House of Brunswick, of which the four 
Georges, Kings of England, were members. 


There is a medium amount of material from this county. Some of 
the counties have a great deal more and some a great deal less. Of 
the total collection there are nine volumes of County Court Minutes; 
three volumes of wills; one volume of public school records, and one 
volume of Register of Officers’ bonds, and the marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date as follows: 1782-1801, 1805-1820, 
1820-1823, 1824-1830, 1831-1839, 1839-1845, 1845-1852, 1850-1859, and 
1866-1868. The material is of the nature of the material in other coun- 
ties, which is as follows: Acknowledgments of deeds and deeds of trust; 
appointments of commissioners for special duties such as to make 
navigable certain streams; appointments of patrols; acknowledgments 
of bills of sale; cases and disposition of them; acknowledgments of the 
returns of inventories; records of guardians returning their accounts; 
records of administrators’ returns; lists of the Justices of the Peace 
and petit and grand juries; appointments of auditors to settle the 
accounts of deceased persons; records of granting licenses for retailing 
liquor; some wills; petitions for dowers, year’s provisions, etc.; ap- 
pointments of auctioneers; records of filing security bonds; appoint- 
ments of overseers of roads; records of flesh marks; lists of land sold 
for taxes; and records of peace warrants. 

There are three volumes of wills dating 1781 to 1822, 1822 to 1827, 
and 1829 to 1841. These books contain only the wills. 

The volume of Public School Records dates from 1840 to 1860. 

The volume of the Register of Officers’ bonds dated from 1796 to 
1829. 

The marriage bonds are arranged, alphabetically. 


BURKE COUNTY 
Burke County was formed in 1777 from Rowan. Was named in honor of 
Dr. Thomas Burke, a member of the Continental Congress and Governor of 
North Carolina. 


* Have been unable to locate Act authorizing this bond issue. 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 13 


There is little material from this county. Three volumes of County 
Court Minutes are on the shelves which date respectively 1807-1818, 
1818-1829, 1830-1840. There is one case of original wills dating from 
1794 to 1866, and also two boxes of Court Papers dating respectively 
1782-1842 and 1783-1843. There are also some marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes contain the same general material as in 
other Court Minutes of that time. The most numerous things recorded 
are the acknowledgments of deeds; lists of the Justices of the Peace, 
and petit and grand jurors; appointments of special commissions; road 
overseers; letters of administration; lists of justices to make lists of 
taxable property; acknowledgments of wills; appointments of guar- 
dians; the apprenticing of orphans; petitions of various kinds such as 
for dower, for roads, and for year’s allowance; cases, judgments, and 
executions; and appointments of patrols. There are also records of 
several cases where the court ordered certain sums to be paid out of the 
public money for the scalps of wolves and panthers. 

The case of wills is small and does not contain many papers. How- 
ever, there are some that reach as far back as 1794. The latest are 
dated 1868. 

The two cases of Court Papers are very interesting. They contain 
such material as letters, warrants, appearance bonds, appeal bonds, sub- 
poenas, capiases, executions, ejectment proceedings, commissions of the 
Justices of the Peace for special trials, summons to take depositions, 
depositions, surveyors’ reports, and a copy of the National Intelligencer- 
Extra, which contains the special message of President John Tyler 
which was delivered to a joint session of Congress June 1, 1841. 

There is one box of marriage bonds. 


BUNCOMBE COUNTY 


Buncombe County was formed in 1791 from Burke and Rutherford. Was 
named in honor of Colonel Hdward Buncombe, a Revolutionary soldier. 


There are three volumes available from this county. There is a 
Trial Docket dated 1796-1805, a volume of County Court Minutes 
dated 1822-1824, and a volume of marriage records dated 1851-1870. 

In the Trial Docket is such material as follows: 


9 William Galloway 2 The defendant came in court 


vs. case acknowledged the service of —_ ees Gen at 
John Odel 2 writ jury charged non sui 


There were no other records kept in this volume. 

The volume of County Court Minutes dating from January 1822 
to October 1824 contains such material as the lists of the Justices of 
the Peace, and the petit and grand jurors for each term of the court 


14 Norra Carorina Historica, Commission 


of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. And in addition there are records of 
granting letters of administration; records of Deputy Sheriffs giving 
bond; appointment of Commissioners to lay off year’s allotment for 
support; records of cases and disposition of them; records of binding 
out orphans; granting licenses for retailing liquor; records of exparte 
proceedings (petition and the granting of the petition to divide the 
land of a deceased person among his heirs); decrees allowing specified 
prices for daily board; and itemized inventories of estates of deceased 
persons. 

The volume of Marriage Records dates from 1851 to 1870. In the 
first part of the book is the complete certificate of the marriage, which 
is known as a marriage bond, except that this is a copy, but in the last 
part are mere statements that certain persons were legally married, 
giving the date and the name of the minister or magistrate. 

There are no marriage bonds of Buncombe County. 


BUTE COUNTY 


Bute County was formed in 1764, from Granville. Was named in honor 
of John Stuart, Earl of Bute, one of the principal Secretaries of State, and 
also First Lord of the Treasury under King George III. Because of the un- 
popularity of the Earl, the General Assembly in 1778 passed an act which 
wipe Bute County from the map, and Warren and Franklin counties were 
erected from its territory. 


The duration of this county was short, and in consequence there could 
not have been a great deal of material from it, And as it is, all the 
original material is not available. There is one volume of County 
Court Minutes dating from 1767 to 177 6; one case and part of another 
case of County Court papers dating from 1765 to 1779; one case of 
original wills dating from 1764 to 1779; two cases of inventories of 
estates dating from 1764 to 1779; and one book of land entries. 

The County Court Minutes dating from 1767 to 1776 contain such 
material as the acknowledgment of deeds and bills of sale; probation of 
wills; appointments of overseers of roads; lists of the Justice of the 
Peace, and the lists of the petit and grand juries for each term of Pleas 


and Quarter Sessions of Court; various kinds of petitions; special or- - 


ders for the erection of bridges; various kinds of bonds proved in court; 
records of guardians being appointed; and records of apprenticing 
orphans. On page 181 of this volume is listed the price of liquors and 
various kinds of drinks, and board and lodging as passed on by the 
court. On page 191 is a record of the court’s not recognizing the 
authority of the Royal Governor, William Tryon. 

In the case of Court Papers is such material as officers’ bonds; con- 
tracts; records of apprenticing orphans; demand and promisory notes; 
deeds of gifts; notices of appeal; agreements for the division of negroes 


Hanpsoox or County Rxrcorps 15 


of deceased persons; guardians’ bonds and administrators’ bonds; peti- 
tions for relief from’ paying taxes and from public service; bills of sale 
and inventories of estates; royal commissions for the office of sheriff, 
ete. There is also a list of taxables for Bute County dated 1771 as 
well as a copy of land entries, which is dated 1778-1779 and contains 
380 records of land. Also at the front and back of this book is a page 
giving a list of articles at the naval office at New Bern, N. C. These 
pages are torn, but some of each is legible. 

The case of wills dates from 1765 to 1779, and contains the original 
wills. 

The two cases of inventories include materials between the years 1764 
and 1779. There are inventories of estates of deceased men made by 
administrators before disposition of property. There are also accounts 
of the sale of property, and bills of goods purchased. In one case 
there is a list of vouchers paid out of the public funds for the year 1760. 

There are 89 marriage bonds. 


CABARRUS COUNTY 


Cabarrus County was formed in 1792 from Mecklenburg. Was formed in 
honor of Stephen Cabarrus, of Edenton, several times a member of the Leg- 
islature and often Speaker of the House of Commons. 


There is only one volume of County Court Minutes from this county 
and it is dated from 1793 to 1797. On the first page of this volume is 
the following: 


State of North Carolina— 


The minutes and proceedings of the county court begun and held in the 
county of Cabarrus agreeable to an Act of Assembly of the State of North 
Carolina made for the purpose of dividing the county of Mecklenburg and 
erecting a separate and distinct county by the name of Cabarrus at the house 
of Robert Russels the third’ Monday of January in the year of our Lord one 
-thousand seven hundred and ninety three and in the seventeenth of our In- 
dependence. 


The material usually recorded in court minutes is included in this 
book. There are acknowledgments of deeds, powers of attorney, ap- 
pointments of various kinds, lists of jurors, and Justices of the Peace; 
bills of sale and several petitions recorded. There are a few records of 
marks and brands. 

There are 22 boxes of marriage bonds which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


CAMDEN COUNTY 
Camden County was formed in 1777 from Pasquotank. Was named in 


honor of the learned Englishman, Charles Pratt, who was Harl of Camden, 
and one of the strongest friends of the Americans in the British Parliament. 


16 Norru Carortrna Histortca, Commisston 


The material from this county is very scanty, there being only two 
volumes, one of which is County Court Minutes, and the other Orphans’ 
Accounts. There are no marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1855 to 1868 and contain such 
material as acknowledgments of deeds, bills of sale, etc.; lists of the 
Justices of the Peace and jurors for each term of the Court of Pleas 
and Quarter Sessions; records of the appointments of guardians and 
their qualifying by giving bond; various petitions; orders for special 
audits of estate; letters of administration; special orders for road over- 
seers and patrols; and the probation of wills. The records in this book 
are in excellent condition, and were exceedingly well recorded. 

The first part of the Orphans’ Account Book is pasted up with other 
material which is very valuable. The accounts of the orphans date from 
1803 to 1809. The accounts are records of the expenditure of money 
(and for what purpose) of the orphans of Camden County. 

The papers pasted in the front of the book pertain to several matters. 
There are notices sent out by the Secretary of State to the clerks of the 
counties informing them of the laws passed by the General Assembly; 
commissions from the Governor appointing Justices of the Peace; mili- 
tary circulars and orders; various lists of taxables and tax returns for 
both real and personal property and privilege taxes; letters and articles 
from State officials, some of which interpret the laws for the benefit of 
county officers. There are also military pamphlets pasted in this 
volume. 

There are no marriage bonds from this county, but there is recorded 
in the book of orphans’ accounts the act passed by the General Assembly 
requiring the county officers to keep a record of all persons married as 
well as a record of their parents. 


CARTERET COUNTY 


Carteret County was formed in 1722 from Bath. Was named in honor of 
Sir John Carteret, afterwards (1744) Harl Granville, one of the Lords Pro- 
prietors. 


There is a great deal of material on Carteret, and some of it is very 
old, going back as far as 1717. There are grant books, deed books, 
County Court Dockets, County Court Minutes, lists of taxables, mar- 
riage bonds, and miscellaneous records, as well as abstract of wills 
to 1800. 

There are more than 25 volumes of County Court Minutes, including 
many pamphlets dating from 1724 to 1868. The volume, or rather the 
cover of the volume, dated 1724, has only one page, and that is badly 
torn. The next volume according to date is of the nature of a pamphlet. 
It is dated 1764-1767, and contains the material generally found in 
court minutes of that time. The next volume is dated 1771-1775, and 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps ali 


the others as follows: 1775-1781, 1781-1782, 1783-1785, 1793-1796, 
1796-1799, 1799-1804, 1804-1813, 1813-1820, 1821-1830, 1824-1826 (there 
are several pamphlets between these dates) ; 1826-1827, 1831-1837, 1837- 
1845, 1840-1841, 1842-1845, 1845-1848, 1849-1852, 1853-1858, 1858-1868. 
There is no record in this volume for the year 1863. Some of these 
volumes contain some very interesting material. In the back of the 
volume dated 1804-1813 is a list of the jurors, the number of miles each 
traveled to reach court, and the amount paid for his services. The list 
contains the jurors for the years 1807-1812. In the back of the volume 
dated 1813-1820 is a list of the names of persons granted licenses to 
retail small quantities of liquors. These licenses were granted at the 
terms of court held in the years 1817-1821. In the same book is a 
drawing or map of land which was divided among the heirs of Gabriel 
Holmes. In the volume dated 1821-1830 there is also a list of the per- 
sons to whom licenses were granted to sell liquors in small quantities. 
There is also in this book the list of property sold for taxes and the 
amount of the taxes. In the back of the volume dated 1831-1837 is a 
list of the Justices of the Peace who were commissioned and who quali- 
fied, and also receipts signed by the Justices of the Peace who received 
a copy of the revised statutes of North Carolina. 

In the volume dated 1858-1868, on page 2, is a record of a suit growing 
eut of a controversy between the Justices of the Peace of Carteret 
County and the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad for $50,000 
worth of stock. The agreement between these parties is recorded, which 
included an order for $50,000 worth of bonds to be issued with which 
to purchase the stock. Also there is between pages 211-212 a proclama- 
tion issued to the people of North Carolina by William W. Holden, 
Provisional Governor, informing the people of his appointment, and 
giving his purpose and plan of reorganization of the government, and 
beseeching the people who are or were loyal to support him. Between 
pages 215-216 is pasted another proclamation of William W. Holden, 
Provisional Governor, giving the number of people to be elected from 
each county to represent it in the State Convention. Also there is the 
list of the 14 classes forbidden to take the oath of amnesty. 

Besides the special things mentioned, there is such material as ac- 
knowledgments of deeds and bills of sale; appointments of road over- 
seers; lists of the Justices of the Peace and the petit and grand jurors; 
various kinds of petitions, such as petitions for partitions of land, for 
year’s provisions, for dowers, for the sale of real and personal property 
to create assets to pay indebtedness; probations of wills; various court 
eases and their disposition; rate of taxes; lists of land sold for taxes 
beth for the ccunty andc town. 

Among the pamphlets of County Court Minutes in the case dated 1764- 
1782 is a copy of a docket dating from 1741 to 1856. It contains the 
ease referred to or appealed to the Superior Court. 


18 Norrs Carorina Historrcat Commission 


Among the pamphlets of the County Court Minutes in the case dated 
1724-1796 is a pamphlet of deeds dating from 1749 to 1752. 

In a case labeled, “Carteret County Court Docket, 1731-1784,” are 
eleven pamphlets, which contain appearance and reference cases, refer- 
ence petitions, and execution dockets. An example of the material is as 
follows: 


APPEARANCE DOCKET TO DECEMBER COURT 1785 


David Cooper executed 
17 vs. case and dismissed, clerk’s fee paid 
Wm. Smith agreed 


There is a grant bock dating 1717 to 1724, and two deed books dating 
1752-1759 and 1765-1775. These books are the originals. 

Among the pamphlets and copies in the case labeled “Deeds 1721- 
1783” is a copy of Court Minutes dating 1841-1842; a copy of the 
records of deeds, but not the deeds as labeled on the cover. This book 
is dated 1745-1756. There is a large volume of deeds dated 1757-1766 
and a small pamphlet dated 1721-1723, containing deeds which were 
given for land sold under authority of an Act passed by the Assembly 
which gave power to sell land upon which the quit rents had not been 
paid. There is also in this case a list of taxables for the year 1784. The 
book gives the names of the people, the number of acres, the district, the 
white and black polls, and the total taxes due or paid, and at the end 
there is a grand total of all taxes. 

There are also three volumes of taxables which include the years 
from 1802 to 1819. From these three volumes can easily be ascertained 
the number of polls for each year, taxable property, ete. They are in 
good condition. 

There is a case containing a little miscellaneous material such as 
security bonds, inventories of estates, one will loose, and a book of wills 
and bonds, and one copy of powers of attorney. These books are in 
poor condition. 

There are seventeen cases of marriage bonds, which are arranged 
alphabetically. 

CASWELL COUNTY 


Caswell County was formed in 1777 from Orange. Was named in honor 
of Richard Caswell, member of the First Continental Congress, first Governor 
of North Carolina after the Declaration of Independence, six times reélected 
Governor, and Major-General in the Revolutionary Army. 


There are County Court Minutes, marriage bonds, lists of taxables, 
inventories of estates, wills, and land entries. 

It is an exceptional thing that the first volume of County Court 
Minutes has been preserved, and is in splendid condition. The first 


Hanpsoox or County ReEcorps 19 


session of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions was held in June 
1777. This volume includes the proceedings from 1777 to 1781. The 
other volumes are dated as follows: 1781-1788, 1788-1794, 1794-1801, 
1801-1809, 1809-1813, 1814-1819, 1819-1823, 1823-1831, 1835-1839, 1839- 
1842. These volumes contain material ordinarily found in such records. 

There are also several books of various sizes of County Court Minutes 
in a box with lists of taxables. These records are small pamphlet-like 
volumes, or are parts of larger books which have come apart. ‘These 
books or pamphlets are dated as follows: 1822, 1843-1843, 1843, 1834, 
1844. 

The box of wills is dated from 1777 to 1800 and they are arranged 
alphabetically. 

There are several volumes of lists of taxables, which are dated, and 
include the following dates: 1781, 1787, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1797, 1798, 
1803, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806. . 

These lists give the names, the number of acres, the number of polls, 
both white and black, and the assessed valuation of the property. At 
the end of each year is a recapitulation of the entire list. 

There are two boxes labeled “Inventories of Estates,” and they are 
dated 1777 to 1800. These boxes should be labeled “Miscellaneous 
Court Papers,” for they include powers of attorney, deeds of gift, bills 
of sale, election returns, witness tickets, guardians’ returns, and bonds, 
as well as inventories of estates. 

There is one volume of land entries, which is dated 1788 to 1863. 
These records give the name of the person, the number of acres, the date, 
and a meager designation of the location of the land. 

There are 23 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


CHATHAM COUNTY 


Chatham County was formed in 1770 from Orange. Was named in honor 
of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who was the most eloquent English de- 
fender of the American cause during the Revolution. 


The material on this county consists mostly of County Court Minutes, 
but there are several copies of inventories of estates and wills. There 
are no marriage bonds. There is also one copy of Minutes Docket of 
the Court of Equity. 

The Court Minutes begin at the year 1774 and run to 1861. How- 
ever, there are some copies missing. The first volume is dated 1774- 
1779, and the others as follows: 1781-1785, 1790-1794, 1794-1799, 
1799-1800, 1811-1816, 1816-1822, 1822-1827, 1828-1833, 1834-1841, 
1842-1849, 1849-1858, and 1860-1861. These volumes contain the gen- 
eral material found in the average Court Minutes of the period. There 
were kept the names of the Justices of the Peace and the petit and grand 
jurors for each term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; 


20 Nortsu Carorina Histortcatn Commission 


acknowledgments of deeds, bills of sale; appointments of road overseers; 
appointments of guardians, and records of letters of administrators, 
various court cases and the disposition of them; apprenticing of orphans; 
lists of property sold for taxes and the amount of taxes due on each; 
in some volumes are found the rates of taxes levied for the year, and 
records of various bonds and petitions. 

There is a copy of the Minute Docket of the Court of Equity, dated 
1821-1839. This book contains many cases in dispute in equity. The 
details of the complaints and the answers are not given, but the decrees 
are given. 

There are six will books, dated respectively, 17938, 1794-1798, 1798- 
1819, 1798-1834, 1817-1857, 1784-1794, the last of which contains some 
deeds and inventories of estates. 

Besides the volume dated 1784-1794, in which there are some inven- 
tories of estates, there are two large volumes of inventories of estates 
dated 1801-1812 and 1809-1822. These volumes are in excellent con- 
dition, and the inventories were very well recorded. 

The marriage bonds have been lost. 


CHOWAN COUNTY 


Chowan County was formed in 1672 from Albemarle. Was named for an 
Indian tribe in the northeastern part of the State when the English first 
came to North Carolina. 


There is a fairly good collection of material from this county, yet 
there are not the County Court Minutes as of some counties, especially 
Carteret. There are County Papers, deeds, lists of taxables, and marriage 
bonds. 

The County Court Minutes begin at 1704 and run to 1798, but even 
between these dates the minutes for some years are missing. Some of 
the minutes books have come to pieces and have to be kept in cases. 
They are, therefore, not arranged chronologically, but they have the 
records of the period of development and procedure recorded. The 
things recorded are lists of Justices of the Peace and jurors for the 
sessions of court; acknowledgments of deeds; bills of sale, etc.; commis- 
sions of appointment of various kinds; orders by men of high authority 
to petit officers; acknowledgments of letters of administration and 
records of bonds being given; and the records of cases. Most of these 
minutes are in the pamphlet style of book. The books dated from 
1780 to 1798 are the regular size minute books. 

There are several lists of taxables which date from 1766 to 1798. 
Some of these lists give the names and the amount, while others give 
the valuation, ete. 

There are also several deed books, but they are in such condition as 
to have to be put in cases. They date from 1699 to 1760. 


—— 


Hawnpsoox or County Recorps 21 


There is a case labeled “Procession Docket” and “County Court 
Papers.” The Court Papers consist of various material such as sub- 
penas, court orders, etc. The Dockets are records of cases in the Court 
of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. 

Tn addition to that material there are 19 volumes of County Papers, 
bound, 17 of which date from 1685 to 1805. They contain a great va- 
riety of papers such as grants, deeds, indentures of apprenticing, various 
bonds, petitions, appointments, subpcenas, capiases, etc. 

There are 10 boxes of marriage bonds arranged alphabetically. 


COLUMBUS COUNTY 


Columbus County was formed in 1808 from Bladen and Brunswick. Was 
named in honor of the Discoverer of the New World. 


The material from this county is so small as to amount to almost 
nothing. As a matter of fact, there is only one volume available, and 
it dates from 1838 to 1846. This is a volume of County Court Minutes 
and it contains the material usually recorded in Court Minutes of that 
period of our history. There are lists of Justices of the Peace, and 
jurors for the different sessions of court; acknowledgments of deeds 
and bills of sale, etc.; letters of administration, appointments of various 
kinds; licenses to sell liquors in small quantities, petitions of different 
kinds; records of many kinds of bonds being recorded, and a few cases 
and the disposition of them. 

No marriage bonds or other kinds of material have been obtained. 


CUMBERLAND COUNTY 


Cumberland County was formed in 1754 from Bladen. Was named in 
honor of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, second son of King George 
II. Cumberland was the commander of the English army at the battle of 
Culloden, in which the Scotch Highlanders were so badly defeated. Many 
of them came to America, and their principal settlement was at Cross Creek 
in Cumberland County. 


There is quite a bit of material from this county, but the major part 
consists of County Court Minutes. There are 32 volumes of them, dating 
from 1784 to 1865. There are also two volumes of County Road Dockets 
and one volume of tax lists, and one case of loose material on the Town 
of Fayetteville, besides 19 boxes of marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes do not contain any unusual material. 
They consist of the materials ordinarily found in records of those 
periods which give the progress and achievement of the county and the 
County Court. There is such material as lists of the Justices of the 
Peace and petit and grand jurors; acknowledgments of legal papers such 
as deeds, bills of sale, letters of administration, apprenticing of orphans, 
appointments of various kinds, reports of officers’ lists of property sold 


22 Norts Carortina HistorrcaL Commission 


for taxes, and property advertised to be sold at different years. There 
are a few deeds recorded in some of these books and oaths of naturali- 
zation. 

This is the first county of which notice has been taken of the fact 
that it kept a special court minute book for the appointment of road 
overseers, their laborers, and their reports. There are two volumes of 
these books, dating from 1825 to 1855, and they contain the various 
appointments, etc. pertaining to Cumberland County. 

There is also one volume of the lists of taxables, dating 1777-8-9-80. 
This volume also contains the lists of men who had not taken the oath 
of allegiance. 

There is a volume of Equity Minute Docket, dating from 1788 to 
1829. This book consists of various cases in equity and the settlement 
of them. 

There are 19 cases of marriage bonds arranged alphabetically. 

By far the most interesting material on this county or on any part 
of it, is that labeled “Fayetteville Papers,” which date from 1820 to 
1870. This case contains material of many kinds, such as petitions for 
the organization of a company to supply water to the town, reports for 
health protection by a committee appointed to investigate and suggest 
methods of prevention of diseases; estimates of losses by fire; various 
kinds of paper money; reports of receipts and disbursements for the 
maintenance of the town government; a copy of the Raleigh Register for 
the year 1823, which contains an almanac and lists of the county court 
clerks and sheriffs for the counties of the State. There are also official 
letters included in the material. 

In the County Court Minutes, dated October 1787 to February 1791, 
on the last page of the book is an oath of allegiance to the United States 
and a denouncement of allegiance to George ITI. 

There are five volumes of County Court Minutes which are dated as 
follows: 1755-1759, 1759-1765, 1772-1776, 1777-1778, 1778-1780. These 
books contain the material ordinarily found in the court minutes. 


CURRITUCK COUNTY 


Currituck County was formed in 1672 from Albemarle. It was named after 
an Indian tribe. 


All the material available from this county is County Court Minutes 
and marriage bonds. There is one case of marriage bonds and four 
volumes of County Court Minutes. 

The four volumes of County Court Minutes date somewhat as follows: 
Three volumes date from 1799 to 1830, and then there is a break until 
1851, after which they run to 1868. The material is of the usual kind 
recorded in Court Minutes. It is true there are a few deeds recorded 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 93 


in the last volume, but there are only a few. There are court cases 
recorded and Justices of the Peace and jurors at the many terms of the 
Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. There are acknowledgments of 
deeds, bills of sale, petitions of various kinds, such as for a year’s pro- 
visions, for dowers, petitions to sell negroes, petitions for partitions of 
land, the probations of wills, etc. Three of the four books are in such 
bad shape as to have to be kept in cases for proper preservation. 
There are about 100 marriage bonds. 


DUPLIN COUNTY 


Duplin County was formed in 1749 from New Hanover. Was named in 
honor of George Henry Hay, Lord Duplin, an English nobleman. 


There is no variety of material on this county. In fact, there are 
only 11 cases of marriage bonds and 16 volumes of County Court Min- 
utes. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1784 to 1852, but some between 
these dates are missing. They date as follows: 1784-1791, 1793-1799, 
1801-1802, 1802-1804, 1804-1810, 1810-1816, 1817-1819, 1819-1822, 
1823-1828, 1832-1834, 1837-1838, 1840-1843, 1843-1845, 1845-1846, 
1851-1852. They contain the materials ordinarily kept.in such records, 
ie. the lists of the Justices of the Peace, and the 4urors, petitions of 
many kinds, appointments of every kind, court cases and the disposition 
of them, acknowledgments of deeds and the probation of wills, ete. 

The marriage bonds are arranged alphabetically, and there are 11 
boxes. 


EDGECOMBE COUNTY 


Edgecombe County was formed in 1735 from Bertie. Was named for 
Richard Edgecombe, who became Baron Edgecombe and was a lord of the 
English treasury. 


The variety of material on this county is not so great, but it is better 
than that of some other counties. There are County Court Minutes, 
inventories and sales of estates, Negro Cohabitation bonds, and mar- 
riage bonds. Some of the material is well preserved, while some of it 
is in bad condition. 

The County Court Minutes are by far the greatest in number, there 
being 24 volumes, which date from 1757 to 1863. The first volume, 
dating 1757-1764, contains records of courts held at Tarboro and 
Enfield. After that date, however, all courts were held at Tarboro. 
The records contain such things as the acknowledgments of deeds; 
probations of wills; powers of attorney; appointments of road over- 
seers; various court cases; appointments of Justices to take the lists 
of taxables; the names of the Justices and the jurors that sat at the 
different terms of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; various 


94 Norte Carorina Historica Commission 


orders for people to build or repair bridges, open new roads, and for the 
county trustee to pay the bills when the work was accepted by the 
court; apprenticing of children; appointments of guardians, ete. These 
minutes date as follows: 1757-1764, 1764-1772, 1772-1776, 1778-1784, 
1784-1790, 1790-1792, 1792-1794, 1795-1797, 1797-1800, 1800-1804, 
1804-1807, 1807-1811, 1811-1813, 1813-1816, 1816-1819, 1819-1820, 
1820-1826, 1826-1832, 1833-1840, 1840-1844, 1844-1848, 1848-1852, 
1853-1857, 1857-1863, 1863. 

There are 6 volumes of inventories of estates which date as follows: 
1735-1758, 17641772, 1783-1788, 1788-1790, 1790-1792, 1792-1794, 
1798-1800. These volumes have an index at the back of each book which 
facilitates the finding of any particular item. The inventories are 
recorded in various styles, and of various items such as inventories of 
goods sold, while some are records of the deceased person’s estate. 

There is one docket of executions which begins with the May Term 
1769, and ends with the February Term 1772. In this docket there 
is very little stated about the cases. 

There is one Crown Docket which begins with the May Term of 
Court 1755, and ends with the March Term 1762. This docket is much 
on the order of the execution docket, the records being made in prac- 
tically the same manner. 

There is a docket or record of marks and brands which dates from 
August 1732 to May 1809. This record was kept very uniformly, 
giving the mark and brand, when the person had a brand, and the 
name opposite, with the date of recording it above. 

There is a volume of the minutes of the Commissioners of Tarboro 
dating from September 20, 1760, to July 26, 1793. They consist of 
appointments, orders of many kinds, petitions, ete. 

There is one box which contains Edgecombe County Negro Cohabita- 
tion records for the years 1866-1867. Some of these records not only 
tell the number of years certain parties have cohabited, but also the 
number of children they have. 

There are 19 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 

FRANKLIN COUNTY 


Franklin County was formed in 1779 from Bute. Was named in honor of 
Benjamin Franklin. 


There is a fairly good collection of material from this county. 
There are 18 volumes of County Court Minutes, one volume of deeds, 
two volumes of lists of taxables, and one case with original wills, inven- 
tories of estates, lists of taxables, and a few papers of wardens’ reports; 
and eleven boxes of marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1785 to 1863, of which the 
different volumes date as follows: 1785-1794, 1794-1800, 1800-1805, 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 25 


1803-1810, 1810-1813, 1814-1817, 1818-1820, 1819-1821, 1820-1823, 
1820-1824, 1822-1824, 1825-1827, 1828-1830, 1831-1836, 1836-1840, 
1840-1844, 1844-1847, 1847-1853. There seems to be nothing out of 
the ordinary recorded in these papers, which contain such things as the 
lists of the Justices of the Peace and jurors at each term of the Court 
of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; acknowledgments of deeds; probations 
of wills; appointments of road overseers; acknowledgments and grant- 
ing letters of administration; records of apprenticing children; court 
cases and in some instances the disposition of them. 

The two volumes of the lists of taxables date from 1804 to 1836. 
They contain the lists of taxables for the different districts, after which 
there is a recapitulation of the entire tax for the county for each year. 
Because of the arrangement of the records, it is easy to compare the 
taxes and valuation of the property for the different years, which seem 
to rise one year and fall the next or the following years. 

The volume of deeds dates from 1797 to 1799. In the back of the 
book is an index by which one can easily find the deed wanted. 

There are 17 papers of orphans accounts, dating between 1794 and 
1795, in a case labeled “Wills, Inventories, Lists of Taxables.” In the 
same case there is a list of inventories of estates for the year 1795. 
There are also a few original wills dating between 1794 and 1795. 
And in addition to these, there are a few lists of taxables for the year 
1798. 

There are 11 boxes of marriage bonds which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


GATES COUNTY 


Gates County was formed in 1778 from Chowan, Perquimans, and Hert- 
ford. Was named in honor of General Horatio Gates, who commanded the 
American army at the battle of Saratoga. 


Almost all the material from this county consists of County Court 
Minutes. There are three large volumes of these and several copies of 
small pamphlet-like volumes. There are also two reference dockets, 
and one case of court papers, besides six boxes of marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1779 to 1868, with the cases 
containing the pamphlet-like volumes dating as follows: 1779-1796, 
1796-1815, 1815-1830, 1830-1858, and the three large volumes are as 
follows: 1835-1841, 1851-1854, in the back of this volume is the pro- 
bation of deeds, mortgages, and chattels which date 1878-1882, 1859- 
1868. These books contain the records ordinarily made in Court Min- 
utes of those times. There are the lists of the Justices of the Peace, 
and the jurors for each term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Ses- 
sions; probation of wills (in the volume dated 1833-1841, in the last 
part of the book, is the will of Abraham W. Parker) ; acknowledgments 


26 Norte Carorina HistortcaL Commission 


of deeds; appointments of various kinds; many kinds of court orders, 
such as the closing of roads and the opening of new ones, the building 
of new bridges, etc.; many court cases; in the decade of 1860-70 there 
were orders to pay certain persons for the care of soldiers, and for the 
support of infirm persons, and for provisions supplied to soldiers; 
there is one commission from Governor Martin appointing a Justice 
of the Peace; records of granting licenses to people to retail liquor. There 
is also a report of the Sheriff for the special taxes or privileges licenses 
granted in the county, including the mention of stage players and rope 
dancers. After 1840 there were records of the amount of money spent 
for common school purposes, and many other things of like nature. 

It seems that the volume dating 1851-1854 was discarded for a time 
before all of it was used, then later used to record the probation and 
acknowledgment of deeds, mortgages, and chattels for the years between 
1878 and 1882. f 

There is one case containing two dockets of trials and references. 
These dockets include the years between 1784 and 1786. 

There is also one case containing court papers, which consist of bonds 
of various kinds, such as bonds for the appearance to court of certain 
parties, and bonds for the faithful performance of the duties by officers. 

There are six boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 

There is one volume of Public School Records, which is dated 1841- 
1861. This book contains the records of the schools in Gates County, 
and there are several returns for the election of committeemen, which 
are included on loose paper. 

There is one box of inventories of estates, which is dated 1779 to 1800. 

There are two boxes of wills, which are arranged alphabetically. 
There are no dates on these boxes, but of course the wills are dated. 
These wills have been abstracted. 

There is one volume of the list of taxes for 1784-1806. The names 
are arranged alphabetically for the different years and for the districts. 

There is one volume of the Records of Marriages, of which the dates 
range from 1851 to 1866. 

There is one volume which is a record of the proceedings of the 
Commissioners of the town of Gatesville in 1833, also of the registra- 
tion of slaves to work in the Great Dismal Swamp from 1847 to 1861 
(as provided by the Legislature at the Session of 1846-47). There 
are also a few loose court papers in the volume, which are certificates 
of employment, ete. | 


GRANVILLE COUNTY 
Granville County was formed in 1746 from Edgecombe. Was named in 


honor of John Carteret, Earl Granville, who owned the Granville District. 
He was Prime Minister under King George II, and a very brilliant man. 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps OG 


There are several volumes of County Court Minutes, one Trial 
Docket, two volumes of the Lists of Taxables, one volume of land 
entries, and one volume of Execution Docket. Thus it is quite evident 
that there is not much material available from this county. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1786-1789, 1796-1799, 1800- 
1802, 1803-1806, 1806-1810, 1810-1813, 1813-1816, 1816-1818, 1818- 
1820. They contain lists of the Justices of the Peace and the jurors 
for each term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; acknowledg- 
ments of deeds; probation of wills; appointments of road overseers, 
etc.; many court cases and the disposition of them; court orders for 
the erection of bridges, and for the county trustee to pay the bill when 
the work was completed. 

The two volumes of the Lists of Taxables contain the names of the 
persons, the valuation of property, and the number polls. These 
volumes date 1796-1802 and 1803-1809. At the end of the lists for the 
year is a recapitulation for the entire year. 

The volume of land entries is dated 1778-1785. 

The trial docket dates 1764-1776, and is in the same order as the 
execution docket. 

The Execution Docket is dated 1765-1767. 

There are no marriage bonds from this county. 


HALIFAX COUNTY 


Halifax County was formed in 1758 from Hdgecombe. Was named in 
honor of George Montague Dunk, Harl of Halifax, president of the Board 
of Trade, which had control of the colonies before the Revolution. 


There is by far a greater variety of material from this county than 
from the majority of them, but there are fewer County Court Minutes 
from this county than from the majority. But the variety makes the 
material much more interesting. There are County Court Minutes, 
marriage bonds, wills, deeds, county tax book, deeds of Edgecombe 
Precinct and county, Bertie Precinct and Halifax, county trustee 
records, inventories of estates, school records, and Superior Court Dis- 
trict records. 

The County Court Minutes do not run to completion according to 
date, as there are missing copies. There are only four copies, which 
are dated as follows: 1784-1787, 1796-1799, 1799-1802, and 1829-1824. 
They contain the lists of the Justices of the Peace and the jurors for 
the different terms of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; ac- 
knowledgments of deeds; probation of wills; appointment of overseers 
of roads; orders to audit and settle estates; acknowledgment of deeds ; 
probation of wills; appointments of overseers of roads; acknowledg- 
ment of powers of attorney; orders for the payment of sums for the 


28 NortuH Carortina HistoricaL ComMIssion 


repairing of bridges, etc.; and various other things of like nature. 

There is one volume of Superior Court records, dated 1783-1789, 
which is the records of the Superior Court of Equity. In this book is 
recorded the full complaints and the answers as filed, and in some eases 
the decision of the court or the disposition made of the cases. There 
are a few records of the Court of Equity of some other counties, but 
this book has the fullest account of the proceedings of any noticed. 
There is another volume labeled “Minute Docket from 1797 to 1805,” 
which is the record of the Court of Equity of Halifax District, and 
contains similar material as the one above. 

There is a volume of the County Trustee’s records, which is dated 
1826-1851. This is the first book of that nature observed, and is a very 
good book because of the fact that the material that it contains is 
rarely had or known. It contains the number, payee, and the amount 
of the vouchers paid out by the Trustee. At the end of the year’s busi- 
ness is a balance of money from receipts and expenditures. It seems 
from these recapitulations that the County Trustee was compensated 
for his services by a fee of six per cent on disbursements. The Finance 
Committee audited the report of the County Trustee each year. 

There is one copy of Halifax Trial Docket, which is dated 1766-1770, 
and contains only the names of the plaintiffs and the defendants, and 
in some cases the decisions of the court. 

There is one volume of the Halifax Tax Book, which dates 1784 
1834. It contains the names of the persons, the number of acres of 
land, the number of both white and black polls, the number of carriages, 
wheels of pleasure, the public tax, the county tax, and the parish tax. 
After the list of the above-mentioned things for the different districts 
for the year, there is a recapitulation of the districts of the many items 
taxed and the taxes collected. There is a case with lists of taxables in 
it, but these lists are summarized in the regular tax book dated 1784 
1830. In the same book are inventories of estates, apprenticing of 
children, orders to take depositions, and depositions, an affidavit of 
denouncement of allegiance to kings, princes, or potentates, affidavits 
for the continuance of court cases, lists of insolvent debts, a proclama- 
tion of Governor Richard Caswell, and a book of race courses. 

There is one volume of inventories of estates, dated 1773-1779. This 
book is in bad shape, but contains valuable material about the size of 
estates of deceased people. 

There are three volumes of deeds, one of which contains original 
deeds. These books include deeds from 1755 to 1781. In addition to 
these books there are three boxes of original deeds. 

There are also two boxes of wills which are arranged alphabetically. 


eo 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 29 


There is one box of negro marriage bonds, which corresponds to the 
negro cohabitation bonds. These bonds are for the years 1866-1867. 

There are 15 boxes of white marriage bonds, which are arranged 
alphabetically. 

There is one volume of deeds, which is dated 1796 to 1802. This is 
by far the largest of any volume obtained from the counties. It has 
only the deeds recorded, but has been well kept and contains a great 
number of deeds. 


HERTFORD COUNTY 


Hertford County was formed in 1759 from Chowan, Bertie, and North- 
ampton. Was named in honor of Francis Seymour Conway, Marquis of 
Hertford, an English nobleman. He was a brother of General Conway, a 
distinguished British soldier and member of Parliament, who favored the 
repeal of the Stamp Act. The word “Hertford” is said to mean “Red Ford.” 


The only material from this county is a list of taxables for the year 
1782. This list contains the names of the persons taxes, the number 
of acres of land. of each man, the amount of stock, the number of 
negroes and their ages, etc., and at the end there is a total of the entire 
property, which amounted to $202,884, and also 34 carriage wheels. 


HYDE COUNTY 


Hyde County was formed in 1705 from Bath. Was called Wickham until 
about 1712. It was named in honor of Governor Edward Hyde, of North 
Carolina, a grandson of the Earl of Clarendon. The Earl was one of the Lords 
Proprietors. Governor Hyde was a first cousin of Queen Anne. 


The material from this county is in bad condition and there is very 
little of it. There are several copies of pamphlet-like volumes of County 
Court Minutes, one pamphlet-like volume of wills and inventories of 
estates, and one volume of land entries. 

The County Court Minutes are in a worse condition than the others. 
Among these books is one dated about 1750, and which contains forms 
of oaths of various kinds, such as the oath of a creditor to be adminis- 
tered by a magistrate, the clerk’s oath, grand and petit jurors’ oaths, 
administrators’ oaths, Quakers’ affirmation, oaths for return of inven- 
tories of estate, marriage bonds and marriage licenses. The County 
Court Minutes are dated 1785 to 1797 in one box, and in the other box 
1804 to 1828. They do not contain any unusual material, there being 
such things as lists of the Justices of the Peace and jurors; acknowl- 
edgments of deeds; court orders for the sale of negroes; petitions of 
different kinds; a few court cases, acknowledgments of bills of sale, 
and material of like nature. 

The book of land entries is dated 1778-1795, and contains several 
hundred entries for land. This book gives the names, the number of 
acres of land listed, and the date. 


30 Norts Carorina Historicat Commission 


There is a small pamphlet-like volume dated 1781-1785, which con- 
tains wills and inventories of estates. 
There are no marriage bonds from this county. 


JACKSON COUNTY 


Jackson County was formed in 1851 from Haywood and Macon. Was 
named in honor of Andrew Jackson, who was born in Mecklenburg County 
(the site of his birthplace is now in Union) and who won the brilliant 
victory over the British at New Orleans in 1815, and was twice elected 
President of the United States. 


There is very little material from this county, since it is such a 
young county. There is one volume of County Court Minutes, and 
one volume of marriage records. 

The volume of County Court Minutes dates 1853-1868, and contains 
the material ordinarily in such records. At the first part of the book 
there are recorded the elections of the county officers, and their filing 
the necessary bonds to assume the duties of their respective offices. 
There are recorded the names of the Justices of the Peace, and the 
jurors for each term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; 
acknowledgments of deeds, probation of wills, appointments of many 
kinds, various court cases and the disposition of them, and other things 
of like nature. There are several wills recorded in this book, but in 
one case the will was recorded because of a protest on the part of the 
heirs and because that protest developed into a suit. 

The book of marriage records is dated 1853-1874. In the first of this 
book the names of the couples married, the date of marriage, and the 
name of the person officiating are recorded. Later in the book, there 
are recorded the names of the parents of the couple married, the age, 
the color, the date of marriage, the date of issuing the license, the 
place of marriage, and the name of the person officiating, as well as 
his title. 


JONES COUNTY 


Jones County was formed in 1778 from Craven. Was named in honor 
of Willie Jones of Halifax. He was one of the leading Patriots of the 
Revolution, was President of the Council of Safety, and was opposed to the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States. 


There are only 8 volumes of material from this county, and they 
are County Court Minutes, which date as follows: 1807-1816, 1808- 
1810, 1816-1855, 1826-1832, 1833-1841, 1841-1851, 1851-1860, 1860- 
1868. These books contain material as was ordinarily recorded in court 
minutes. There are lists of the Justices of the Peace and the jurors for 
the different terms of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, ac- 
knowledgments of deeds, probation of wills, the records of filing inven- 


———— a 


Hanpzsoox or County REcorps 31 


tories of estates, petitions of many kinds, orders for the providing of 
year’s provisions, and for dowers, and things of like nature. 

There is also one book of Inventories of Estates. This book contains 
inventories filed during the years 1808-1825. 

There is no other material from this county. 


LENOIR COUNTY 


Lenoir County was formed in 1791 from Dobbs and Craven. Was named 
jn honor of General William Lenoir, one of the heroes of Kings Mountain. 


There are only three volumes of material from this county, and 
they were bound by the Historical Commission. The papers included 
in these three volumes were collected by Lovit Hines of Kinston. They 
date from 1737 to 1914, and include some that are undated. They con- 
sist of grants from both George II and George III, deeds, bonds, a few 
letters, a few pencil-drawn plats of land (most of the deeds and grants 
have drawings on them), bills of sale, and papers of like nature. By 
far the most numerous are the deeds, which include grants or deeds 


from the State, as well as from individuals. There are a few quitclaim 
deeds. 


MARTIN COUNTY 


Martin County was formed in 1774 from Halifax and Tyrrell. Was named 
in honor of Josiah Martin, the last of the royal governors of North Carolina. 
It is probable that this name would have been changed like those of Dobbs 
and Tryon, but for the popularity of Alexander Martin, who was governor 
in 1782 and again in 1790. 


There is very little material from this county, and what volumes 
there are have been through a fire. 

There is a pamphlet-like volume of the County Court of Equity, 
which is dated 1807-1829. The bottom of this book is burned, and it 
is in bad condition. It has only the proceedings of the Court of Equity 
in it. 

There is another pamphlet-like volume of County Court Minutes for 
the year 1847. There is very little material in this volume, but what 
there is consists of what is ordinarily retorded in such records. 

There is one large volume of deeds which dates 1774-1787. This 
book is in bad condition also. The leaves are badly worn and many - 
of them are completely out. On account of the ragged leaves and 
those torn out, it is almost impossible to read all of the deeds. 


MITCHELL COUNTY 


Mitchell County was formed in 1861 from Yancey, Watauga, Caldwell, 
Burke, and McDowell. Was named in honor of Elisha Mitchell, a professor 
in the University of North Carolina. While on an exploring expedition on 


32 Norra Carorina Historrcat Commission 


Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains, Dr. Mitchell 
fell from a high peak and was killed. His body was buried on the top of 
this lofty mountain. 


The only material from this county is one volume of County Court 
Minutes, which is dated 1861 to 1868. The material is that which was 
ordinarily recorded in court minutes. This county is a young county, 
and many of the books are still in use, and for that reason there is only 
one in the Historical Commission collections. 


NASH COUNTY 


Nash County was formed in 1777 from Edgecombe. Was named in honor 
of General Francis Nash, a soldier of the Revolution, who was mortally 
wounded while fighting under Washington at Germantown. The United 
States has erected a monument in his honor at the Guilford Battleground 
near Greensboro. 


The material from this county consists of County Court Minutes and 
marriage bonds. The County Court Minutes as a whole are in very 
good condition, and run from 1778 to 1868, consecutively. They con- 
tain the material ordinarily recorded in court records. The things 
recorded are lists of the Justices of the Peace and the jurors for the 
different terms of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, acknowledg- 
ments of deeds, probation of wills, record of filing inventories of estates, 
appointments of road overseers, apprenticing of orphans, court cases, 
and there are a few wills, besides many kinds of petitions. There are 
also orders for the payment of bills, ete. 

There are seven boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


NEW HANOVER COUNTY 


New Hanover County was formed in 1729 from Bath. Was named after 
Hanover, a country in Europe whose ruler became King of England with 
the title of George I. 


The majority of material from this county consists of County Court 
Minutes, of which there are 19 large volumes, besides 13 small pam- 
phlet-like volumes. There are lists of taxables, and inventories of 
estates, Wilmington District Superior Court Trial Dockets, Execution 
Docket, Court Docket, Reference Docket, Sheriffs’ bonds, lists of county 
officers, and lists of all officials. There are also 13 boxes of marriage 
bonds, one box of negro cohabitation certificates and marriage bonds, 
and one box with four small memorandum books in it, in which are 
recorded the names of men who were married and the year. These 
books run from 1791 to 1867. 

The County Court Minutes begin as far back as 1737, and run to 
1866. However, there are a few breaks in them. Besides the things 


Hanpzsoox or County Recorps 33 


ordinarily recorded in them, there are a good many oaths of allegiance 
and certificates of desirability to become American citizens. There are 
more of them in this county than in any other county observed. 

In the box labeled “Lists of taxables and Inventories,” is some very 
interesting material. There is a bond of security of George W. Davis, 
who was appointed inspector of lumber and timber for 1843. There 
are inventories of estates, some of which include the libraries of the 
deceased person as well as his personal property. There is a list of 
taxables for the year 1782. This list gives the name of the persons, 
the number of acres of land, the number of negroes and their ages, the 
number of horses and mules, the cattle, the amount of stock in trade, 
carriage wheels, houses and lots, value of each person’s property, and 
the total amount carried out. At the end of the list is a recapitulation 
of the whole list. 

There is a trial docket for the Wilmington District Superior Court 
for the year 1756-58. There is a copy of the Wilmington District Execu- 
tion Docket for the years 1786-1797. There is a copy of the Wilming- 
ton District Superior Court Trial Docket for the year 1786. There is 
also another for the year 1789, and still another for the year 1818. 

There is a copy of the Wilmington District Court proceedings for 
the years 1789-1795. 

There is a book which contains the bonds of the sheriffs for the years 
1766-1775. This is the first book observed of this nature. 

There is a small pamphlet-like volume which contains a list of the 
county officials for the year 1774-1790. The officers listed are magis- 
trates, constables, searchers, overseers, and patrolmen. Opposite the 
name is recorded the district over which that person had charge. 

There is a criminal and civil docket for the years 1796-1820. There 
is also a criminal docket for the years 1824-1828. 

There is a small volume which contains the officers of all kinds for the 
years 1807-1812. 

In addition to all these there is one box of negro cohabitation certi- 
ficates and marriage bonds for the years 1866-1867. 

There are 13 boxes of white marriage bonds, which are arranged 
alphabetically. 

There are four small memorandum books in a box, which contain ~ 
the names of some men who were married in certain years. These 
books extend from 1791 to 1867, but they are not complete. 

In the volume of County Court Minutes, dated 1863-1866, in the 
front part is pasted the list of articles and papers which required 
revenue stamps. 


34 Norta Carotina HistoricaL ComMIssion 


NORTHAMPTON COUNTY 


Northampton County was formed in 1741 from Bertie. Was named in 
honor of George, Earl of Northampton, an English nobleman. His son, 
Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, was high in office when Gabriel 
Johnston was governor of North Carolina, and had the town of Wilmington 
named in his honor. 


There are 12 volumes of County Court Minutes, one volume of 
orphans’ estates, and two volumes of inventories of estates from this 
county, besides 11 boxes marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes are dated as follows: 1792-1799, 1813- 
1816, 1817-1821, 1825-1829, 1829-1835, 1835-1839, 1839-1845, 1843- 
1844, 1856-1858, 1859-1863, 1863-1867, 1867-1868. ‘These volumes con- 
tain such material as lists of Justices of the Peace and the jurors, both 
petit and grand, for the different terms of the Court of Pleas and 
Quarter Sessions; acknowledgment of deeds; probation of wills; ap- 
pointments of different kinds; petitions for various things; court cases 
and their disposition, ete. In the minutes of 1865 is recorded the 
proclamation of W. W. Holden, provisional governor of North Carolina. 

The two volumes of inventories of estates are dated 1781-1792 and 
1787-1801, the last of which is properly indexed in the back. There is 
a detached index to the one dated 1781-1792. 

There is a volume of orphans’ estates, which is dated 1781-1801, and 
there is a detached index for it. 

There are 11 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


ONSLOW COUNTY 


Onslow County was formed in 1734 from Bath. Was named in honor of 
Arthus Onslow, who for more than 30 years was (Speaker of the House of 
Commons of the British Parliament. 


The material from this county consists mostly of County Court Min- 
utes, but there are a few wills, 6 boxes of marriage bonds, and one box 
of miscellaneous material, which consists of inventories of estates, land 
entries, and court papers. 

The County Court Minutes begin at 1734 and run up to 1868. Most 
of these records are in pamphlet-like volumes, and some are in bad con- 
dition. They contain the material recorded in regular court minutes, 
which consists of such as follows: Lists of Justices of the Peace and 
the petit and grand jurors for the different terms of the Court of Pleas 
and Quarter Sessions; acknowledgments of deeds, probation of wills, 
appointments of various kinds, court cases, petitions for dowers, for 
year’s provisions, petitions for partitions of land, sundry court orders, 
such as order for bridges to be repaired, ete. 


Eo 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 35 


There are two volumes of wills. These wills have been repaired and 
bound by the Commission. They date from 1757 to 1790, and among 
them there are some inventories of estates and sheets belonging to the 
index of inventories. 

There is a box labeled “Inventories, Land Entries, Court Papers,” 
which contains the Crown Docket for the years 1763-1766. There are 
tax lists for the years 1825-1827, land entries for 1785-1792, 1793-1796, 
writs for the years 1745-1746, 1754-1759, 1752-1759, 1762; inventories 
of estates, 1785; and loose leaves of court papers for 1746-1764. 

There are 6 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 

One of the most interesting things is the way the officers obtained 
record books. They would secure the paper and then get newspapers 
and make the covers for them by pasting several papers together. There 
is part of a London paper serving as the cover of one volume. This 
paper is dated 1761. There is part of a North Carolina paper dated 
1791 on another, and part of a North Carolina paper dated 1793 on still 
another volume. All of these made pamphlet-like volumes for the 
records. 


ORANGE COUNTY 


Orange County was formed in 1753 from Granville, Johnston, and Bladen. 
Was named in honor of William of Orange, who became King William III 
of England. He was one of the greatest of the Kings of England, and 
saved the English people from the tyranny of James II. His name is held 
in honor wherever English liberty is enjoyed. 


There is a great deal of materal from this county. Im fact, there 
are few counties of which there is as much. There are 19 volumes of 
County Court Minutes, lists of taxables, a good many wills, negro 
cohabitation records, marriage bonds, and other material. 

The County Court Minutes begin September 1752 and run to 1857. 
There are 19 of these volumes, which contain lists of the Justices of 
the Peace, lists of jurors both petit and grand, acknowledgment of 
deeds, probation of wills, appointments of various natures, many kinds 
of court orders for the payment of debts, ete., petitions for partition of 
land, for year’s provision, and for dowers, records of return of inyen- 
tories of estate, apprenticing of orphans, and many other things of — 
like nature. These books are dated as follows: 1752-1762, 1762-1766, 
1777-1788, 1787-1795, 1795-1800, 1800-1804, 1805-1809, 1810-1814, 
1815-1817, 1818-1822, 1822-1826, 1826-1831, 1831-1835, 1836-1839, 
1840-1845, 1845-1847, 1847-1851, 1854-1857. 

There is one volume of negro cohabitation records, which is dated 
1866-1868. This is the first volume found which had the certificate 
recorded. Such certificates in other counties have been only sheets of 
paper. 


36 Norts Caroztina Histortcat Commission 


There are four boxes of loose wills. These wills are arranged alpha- 
betically, rather than chronologically. 

There are several boxes which contain lists of taxables. From the 
standpoint of quantity there is a good collection of the lists of taxables 
from this county. They are for the years 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, 
1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1799, 
1801, 1818. 

There is a box labeled “Orange Letters and Printed Matter.” This 
box contains such things as articles entitled “Waste of People’s Money— 
Radical Extravagance,” which is a comparison of expenditures for the 
years 1866-67 and 1868-69, letters from pension agents soliciting infor- 
mation for clients, personal letters, and a prospectus from John H. 
Wheeler for his History of North Carolina, also one for “The Repub- 
lican,” reports of the Comptroller of North Carolina for taxes collected, 
a circular letter sent out by citizens pleading for the non-division of 
Orange County. There are also lists of the people who voted in 1864, 
giving account of their votes for governor, senator, commons, and 
sheriff. The candidates were not recorded, consequently it cannot be 
judged for whom each man voted. 

There is a small typewritten list of all material on this county, which 
is kept with the other material on this county, but the list is not good. 

There are 26 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 

There is a book in which nothing is recorded except the acknowledg- 
ments of deeds. It contains the acknowledgments of deeds for the 
years 1742 to 1798. 


PASQUOTANK COUNTY 


Pasquotank.County was formed in 1672 from Albemarle. Was named for 
an Indian tribe of the eastern part of the State. They first held court at 
Broomfield, then at Nixonton, and now at Hlizabeth City. 


There is more material from this county than from any county ob- 
served, and in addition to the quantity, there is a good variety in case 
a complete study of the county is to be made. The county is one of the 
oldest, and the material is likewise old. The material consists of County 
Court Minutes, Superior Court Minutes, Lists of Taxables, wills, deeds, 
patents, land entries, inventories of estates, commissions of various na- 
tures, settlements of estates, apprentice bonds for negroes, records of 
births, marriages, deaths, flesh marks, and cattle brands, Orphans’ 
Court Minutes, records of the wardens of the poor, and marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes are dated from 1741 to 1868, but they 
are not absolutely complete. However, they are nearly so. Some of 
the earlier minutes contain records of the reference dockets as well as 
records ordinarily recorded in such books. There are 12 large volumes 
of these records, which date from 1765 to 1868. From 1791 to 1868 


Hanpzsoox or County Recorps Bi 


the records are complete and in good condition. These records do not 
seem to have any unusual material recorded in them. There are such 
records as lists of the Justices of the Peace, the names of the jurors, 
both grand and petit, for the different terms of the Court of Pleas and 
Quarter Sessions, acknowledgment of deeds and bills of sale, probation 
of wills, various court orders, appointment of road overseers and of men 
to fill office, record of the sale of negroes for court cost, records of ap- 
prenticing children, records of the appointment of guardians and the 
replacement of them, records of oath of naturalization, and bonds to 
protect the wardens of the poor from the care of certain freed negroes, 
records of administrators qualifying, giving bond and returning inven- 
tories of estates, many court cases and the disposition of them, records of 
land to be sold for taxes, and many other things of like nature. 

There are two volumes of Superior Court Minutes. These records 
are for the terms beginning March 1807 and ending in the spring term 
of 1828, and beginning at the fall term of 1852 and ending at the spring 
term of 1869. These records list jurors, both grand and petit, names 
of the constables, names of the presiding judges, and many decisions 
of the court, including some fines. 

There are two boxes labeled “Lists of taxables,” but there are other 
things included in one of these boxes, such as indentures of apprentic- 
ing, Inventories of estates, personal letters, royal commissions for Jus- 
tices of the Peace, attachments of goods by court orders, peace war- 
rants, promissory notes, as well as tax lists. The tax lists are for differ- 
ent districts and cover different years. 

There is a case labeled “Patents, Deeds, Land Entries, 1742-1787.” 
This box contains material that is somewhat miscellaneous, since there 
are royal commissions of the Justices of the Peace, a bill for ministerial 
service by Dan Earl, and other things of like interest. 

The collection of deeds for this county is larger than is usually found. 
There is a box with loose or original deeds which are dated 1732-1785. 
And in addition to this box, there are six volumes of copied deeds. 
‘Of course these are the regular record books, and they run from 1700 
to 1785, with some years missing. In most of these volumes are indexes 
for the volumes which facilitate the finding of desired deeds. 

There is a box of miscellaneous court papers, which contains war- 
rants, bonds, lists of the jurors as they were drawn from the box, ad- 
ministrators’ bonds, court executions, appearance bonds, powers of at- 
torney and appearances. 

There is a box labeled, “Records of slave matter. Emancipation, 
Schools, processions.” But as a fact there are in this box bonds of freed 
negroes, papers of the wardens of the poor, trials of negroes and the 


decision of the court, appearance bonds, a book of oaths, apprentice 
bonds, land possessions, etc. 


38 Nortu Carotina Histortcat Commission 


There is a box of miscellaneous documents which contains commis- 
sions of Justices of the Peace by Governors Caswell, Samuel and 
Gabriel Johnston, Alexander Martin, George Burrington; ordinance 
for courts by James Glasgow, commissions as clerk by Nathaniel Rice, 
sheriffs’ bonds, ete. These papers are dated from 1724 to 1789. 

There is a box of settlements of estates, which are inventories of 
deceased persons. In addition to this box, there are two volumes of 
like material. These volumes are dated 1777-1792, and 1792-1798. In 
the back of each is the index by which you can find any particular 
settlement in which you are interested. 

The next book of interest is the orphans’ court minutes, which is 
dated 1757-1785. This book contains merely statements of the accounts 
of the orphans, some of which are rather in details while others contain 
just a few items with the balance due. 

There is a box labeled “Inventories of Estates.” It contains inven- 
tories of estates, divisions of land, a copy written by a teacher for her 
pupil to practice, court opinion against freeing slaves, letters, store 
accounts which are itemized, promissory notes, claims for right of way 
for road, attachments of property, bonds for keeping an ordinary, bills 
of sale, and marriage settlements. 

There is a book of the wardens of the poor records. This book con- 
tains the records between 1807 and 1831, and the records are recorded 
according to the district of the county. All amounts paid either to 
wardens or individuals for particular persons were ordered at court 
at the term of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, and recorded as such. 


There is a book of apprentice bonds, which is dated 1855-1861. This . 


book has the printed form and it was only necessary to fill out the form 
to give bond to apprentice a negro by permission of the court. This 
is the first book found of this exact nature. 

This is the first county of which there was kept a record of births, 
marriages, and deaths. There are two volumes of these, which date 
1691-1797 and 1795-1822, and the last also contains records of flesh 
marks and cattle brands. 


An example of the marriage and birth records is as follows: 


Jon Baley and Penolopee Rapper Singlor were joined together in the holy 
estate of matrimony the 14th day of Dec. 1726. 


John son of the said John and Penolopee was born the 27th day of Dec. 
1729. 


Mary daughter of the said John and Penolopee was born the 14th day of 
Dec. 1733. 


Henry son of the said John and Penolopee was born the 8th day of Jan. 
1736-7. 


In the back of the last volume is the account of the county trustee 
for the year 1794, and further on in the back of the book there are 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 39 


records of various claims against the county for years from 1798 to 
1810. 
There are three will books dating from 1762 to 1793. In the back of 
each book is an index. 
There are 8 boxes of marriage bonds, which are alphabetically ar- 
ranged. 
PERQUIMANS COUNTY 


Perquimans County was formed in 1672 from Albemarle. Was named after 
a tribe of Indians. 


There is a large collection of material from this county, but most 
of it consists of inventories of estates. There are three volumes of 
County Court Minutes and two boxes which contain County Court 
Minutes. All the material, with the exception of the three volumes of 
County Court Minutes are in boxes. There are two boxes of deeds 
dating from 1737 to 1794. 

There are four boxes of wills, dating from 1711 to fete These wills 
are arranged alphabetically. 

There are twelve boxes of inventories of estates, none of which are 
later than 1800. 

There are two boxes of taxables, which date from 1743 to 1836, 

There is a box which has the register of births, marriages and deaths, 
dating from 1658 to 1820. 

A box of precinct court records, dated 1688-1693 and 1735-1738, is 
the entire material of this nature. 

The Court Papers, of which there are two boxes, are dated 1702-1816, 
and the papers are miscellaneous. 

There is one box of material labeled “miscellaneous.” This material 
consists of petitions, bonds, inventories of estates, ete. 

In addition to this material, there are ten boxes of marriage bonds, 
which are arranged alphabetically. 

The County Court Minutes contain the material usually recorded 
in such records. There are lists of the Justices of the Peace, lists of 
the jurors both grand and petit, acknowledgments of deeds, probation 
of wills, records of filing inventories of estates appointments of many 
kinds, ete. 


PITT COUNTY: 


Pitt County was formed in 1760 from Beaufort. Was named in honor of 
William Pitt. 


There is very little material from this county. There have been two 
fires in which most of the material was destroyed. There is, however, 
one box of county court papers, which date from 1761 to 1859. There 
is a list of a few persons who served in the Revolution and their length 
of service, a few lists of taxables and inventories of estates. 


40 Nortu Carotmna HistorrcaL Commission 


There are three volumes of County Court Minutes, which are dated 
as follows: 1858-1861, 1862-1867, and 1867-1868. These volumes con- 
tain the material ordinarily recorded in County Court Minutes. There 
are lists of the Justices of the Peace, the lists of jurors, court orders, 
cases tried, appointments of different kinds, and things of such nature. 

There are only four marriage bonds from this county.. 


POLK COUNTY 


Polk County was formed in 1855 from Rutherford and Henderson. Was. 
named in honor of Colonel William Polk, who took part in Revolution at 
Germantown, Brandywine and Eutaw. 


There is only one volume of County Court Minutes from this county, 
and it is dated 1847-48 and 1866-68. This book has very little material 
in it and nothing out of the ordinary. 

There are two boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


RICHMOND COUNTY 


Richmond County was formed in 1779 from Anson. Was named in honor 
of Charles Lenox, Duke of Richmond, principal Secretary of State in William 
Pitt’s second administration. He was a strong friend of the American 
Colonies and made the motion in the House of Lords that they be granted 
their independence. 


The material from this county is not great by any means. In fact, 
the entire collection consists of 10 volumes of County Court Minutes, 
which are dated as follows: 1779-1786, 1786-1792, 1800-1804, 1804- 
1808, 1809-1819, 1830-1838, 1838-1843, 1848-1847, 1847-1850, 1866- 
1868. 

These records contain lists of the Justices of the Peace, jurors both 
grand and petit, appointments, acknowledgments of deeds, probation of 
wills, records of filing inventories of estates, and various court cases 
and their disposition, and the jury sitting on the cases. Nothing un- 
usual seems to be recorded. There is one box of white marriage bonds, 
which date from 1858 to 1868; and there is also a case of negro mar- 
riage bonds which date from 1866 to 1868. 


ROWAN COUNTY 


Rowan County was formed in 1753 from Anson. Was named in honor of 
Mathew Rowan, a prominent leader before the Revolution, and for a short 
time after the death of Gabriel Johnston, acting governor. 


There is almost no material from this county, there being only one 


box of County Court Minutes, which are dated 1750 to 1810, and the 
marriage bonds. 


Hanpsoox or County Recorps 41 


There are 11 boxes of wills from this county, which are arranged 
alphabetically. These wills are the originals, and are dated from 1757 
to 1863. 


ROCKINGHAM COUNTY 


Rockingham County was formed in 1785 from Guilford. Was named in 
honor of Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham, who was 
the leader of the party in the British Parliament that advocated American 
independence. He was Prime Minister when the Stamp Act was repealed. 


There is very little material from this county. There are only three 
volumes of County Court Minutes and the marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date as follows: 1786-1795, 1796-1803, 
1804-1808. There is nothing unusual recorded in these books. 


RUTHERFORD COUNTY 


Rutherford County was formed in 1779 from Tryon and Burke. Was 
named in honor of General Griffith Rutherford, one of the most prominent 
of the Revolutionary patricts. He led the expedition that crushed the 
Cherokees in 1776, and rendered other important services, both in the Legis- 
lature and on the battlefield. 


There is just a small amount of material from this county, and there 
is nothing of variety in the collections, There are County Court Min- 
utes, land entries, guardians’ accounts, and marriage bonds. 

The land entries are in a box and are dated from 1791 to 1803. There 
are two volumes of these books, besides a few leaves from another one. 

There is one volume of guardians’ accounts, which are for the years 
between 1840 and 1850. Some of these accounts are itemized, while 
others have just the totals with the proper oaths attached. 

The collection of County Court Minutes is by far the greatest part 
of that material. There are 12 volumes, besides some that are unfit to 
be on the shelf, except they be in boxes. These minutes date from 1780 
to 1868. However, there are some volumes missing in the collection. 
There are lists of the Justices of the Peace, the jurors both grand and 
petit for the different terms of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Ses- 
sions, acknowledgments of deeds, probation of wills, records of filing 
inventories of estates, many court cases, and there are oaths to obtain 
credit for Revolutionary service according to an Act of the General 
Assembly of 1832. These oaths give the age and names of the apph- 
cants for the credit. 

There are marriage bonds from this county. 


ROBESON COUNTY 


Robeson County was formed in 1786 from Bladen. Was named in honor 
of Colonel Thomas Robeson, a soldier of the Revolution. He was one of the 
leaders at the battle of Elizabethtown, which was fought September 1781. 


42 Nortu Caroxtina Historicat ComMMiIssion 


By this battle the Tories in the southeastern part of the State were crushed 
forever. The commander of the Whigs was Colonel Thomas Brown. 


This is another county from which there is very little material. There 
is one box with a few wills in it, but there are not many. These wills 
are abstracted, and are dated from 1784 to 1806. 

There is also one box of miscellaneous material. This box contains 
letters, bonds, tax returns to the Comptroller general, notices, ete. 

There are also marriage bonds, which are arranged alphabetically. 


STOKES COUNTY 


Stokes County was formed in 1798 from Surry. Was named in honor of 
Colonel John Stokes, a brave soldier of the Revolution, who was desperately 
wounded at the Waxhaw massacre, when Colonel Buford’s regiment was 
cut to pieces by Tarleton. After the war Washington appointed him a judge 
of the United States Court in North Carolina. 


The material from this county is somewhat scanty. There are four 
volumes of County Court Minutes, which cover a period of ten years. 
They are dated as follows: 1790-1793, 1793-1795, 1795-1798, and 1798- 
1800. There is no unusual material in these volumes. There is a record 
of the Justices of the Peace, the jurors, probation of wills, deeds, mort- 
gages, etc., petitions of various kinds, appointments, etc. 

There is one volume of inyentories of estates, which is dated 1790 
to 1809. There is an index to this volume by which can be located the 
estate sought. This index is detached from the volume. 

There is one volume of Road Records, which is dated from 1806 to 
1821. It gives the appointments of the road overseers and the roads 
over which they had charge. The appointments were made at the terms 
of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. 

There are two volumes of lists of taxables. They are dated as fol- 
lows: 1790-1800, and 1800-1806. They contain the citizen’s name, 
number of acres of land, number of polls, both white and black, and the 
total of his taxes. At the end of each year there is a recapitulation of 
of the entire tax returns and a list of insolvents. 


There are 21 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 


SURRY COUNTY 


Surry County was formed in 1770 from Rowan. Was named in honor of 
Lord Surry, a prominent member of Parliament who opposed the taxation 
of the American colonies by Parliament. 


The only material from this county is one box of officers bonds. This 
box contains only a few bonds which date from 1786 to 1803. 


Hanpso0ox oF County Recorps 43 


TYRRELL COUNTY 


Tyrrell County was formed in 1729 from Albemarle. Was named in honor 
of Sir John Tyrrell, who at one time was one of the Lords Proprietors. 


The material from this county consists of County Court Minutes, 
marriage bonds, deeds, miscellaneous court records, and land entries. 

The County Court Minutes begin in 1735 and run to 1868, but some 
of the minutes are missing. What we have are dated as follows: 1735- 
1761, 1758 (for September only), 1761-1770, 1770-1782, 1761-1782, 
1783-1794, 1798-1811, 1819-1849, 1841-1865, 1865-1868. 

There is no very unusual material on this county. The Minutes con- 
tain such things as lists of the Justices of the Peace, lists of the jurors 
both grand and petit for the different terms of the Court of Pleas and 
Quarter Sessions, acknowledgments of deeds, probation of wills, ap- 
pointments of overseers, guardians, etc., special court orders, petitions 
of many kinds, granting licenses for operating ordinaries and selling 
liquors, ete. 

There are few land entries for the years between 1778 and, 1796. 

There are a good many deeds of this county, which are dated from 
1735 to 1819. There are two volumes and three boxes of these deeds 
and two boxes which contain deeds with other material. 

There are 12 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alphabet- 
ically. 

There is also cne box of miscellaneous court records, dated 1756-1786, 
and a tax list dated 1783. 


WARREN COUNTY 


Warren County was formed in 1779 from Bute. Was named in honor of 
General Joseph Warren, a brave Massachusetts soldier who fell while fight- 
ing the battle of Bunker Hill. 


The material from this county consists of County Court Minutes, 
court-martial minutes, wills, inventories of estates, and marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes are dated 1783 to 1854, but all the 
volumes do not run in chronological order. There are nine volumes of 
them. 

There is one volume of court-martial minutes, which is dated 1791- 
1815. This book contains the names of the persons present at the 
regimental court martials and their titles, if such they had. It also 
has the proceedings of the regular business of the court and the record 
of the officers qualifying. 

There are four boxes of inventories of estates, which date between 
1779 and 1800. 


44 Nortu Carotina HistoricaL CoMMIssIoNn 


There are also two boxes of wills, which are dated between 1779 and 
1800. 
There are 23 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. q 
WASHINGTON COUNTY 


Washington County was formed in 1799 from Tyrrell. Was named in 
honor of George Washington. 


There is only one volume of material from this county, and it 1s a 
volume of deeds, which is dated for the years between 1800 and 1801. 
“ 


WAYNE COUNTY 


Wayne County was formed in 1779 from Dobbs and Craven. Was named 
in honor of General Anthony Wayne, one of Washington’s most trusted 
soldiers. His courage was so great as to amount almost to rashness, and 
his soldiers called him “Mad Anthony Wayne.” 


There is not as much material from this county as there is from 
some others, and neither is there a variety. There are a few County 
Court Minutes, a very few marriage bonds, inventories of estates, wills, 
and miscellaneous court papers. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1787 to 1788. There is no 
unusual material in this set of minutes. There are lists of the Justices 
of the Peace, lists of jurors, court orders, petitions of many kinds, ap- 
pointments of road overseers, ete. 

There are five boxes of inventories of estates, which are dated 1780 
to 1800. 

There is one box of original wills, which are dated from 1782 to 
1805. There are also nine small volumes of wills and inventories of 
estates, which are dated from 1782 to 1808. 

There are two volumes of marriage bonds, each of which is indexed. 
Besides these, there are five marriage bonds in a case. 

There is one box of miscellaneous court papers, which is dated 1780 
to 1800. 

WILKES COUNTY 


Wilkes County was formed in 1777 from Surry and Burke. Was named 
in honor of John Wilkes. Wilkes was a violent opponent of the Tory party 
in England, who would not let him take his seat in Parliament to which he 
had been elected. The Americans imagined that he was suffering in the 
cause of liberty and named this county in his honor. 


There is very little material from this county. There are a few 
County Court Minutes and the marriage bonds. 


The County Court Minutes date from 1778 to 1797, but there is no 
unusual material recorded. 


Hanpspoox or County Rezcorps 45 


There is one volume of court records, which is dated 1778 to 1799. 
This volume contains bonds of many kinds, inventories of estates, pow- 
ers of attorney, bills of sale, wills, contracts, etc. 

There are 10 boxes of marriage bonds, which are arranged alpha- 
betically. 

YADKIN COUNTY 


Yadkin County was formed in 1850 from Surry. Its name is derived from 
the Yadkin River, which runs through it. It is supposed to be an Indian 
name. 


There is very little material from this county. There are only two 
volumes of County Court Minutes, and the marriage bonds. 

The County Court Minutes date from 1856 to 1858 and from 1858 
to 1868. There is no unusual material recorded in these volumes. 
There are lists of the Justices of the Peace, lists of the jurors both 
grand and petit, appointments, probation of wills, appointments of 
guardians, road overseers, and petitions of various kinds. 

The marriage bonds are arranged alphabetically. 


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